Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America (14 page)

The only reason we stayed alive that night was because Israel came into Lebanon and drove the Palestinians away. Like the Christians of southern Lebanon, the inhabitants of northern Israel had been forced for many years to spend long periods of time in bomb shelters because of artillery and rocket bombardments by the PLO and its Muslim allies in Lebanon. In addition, Palestinian death squads repeatedly attempted to infiltrate across the border into Israel to conduct terrorist attacks. Sometimes they succeeded, with deadly results. The incident that broke Israel’s patience happened on March 11, 1978, when a squad of Palestinian terrorists from Lebanon hijacked a bus on a highway south of Haifa, on Israel’s northern coast. They drove south toward Tel Aviv, brutalizing the bus passengers and firing indiscriminately out the windows at passing cars. Dozens of Israelis were murdered and scores were wounded before this Palestinian tour of terror was halted. Fed up with the incursions, on March 15,1978, Israel launched Operation Litani.

This operation had two purposes: first, to bring the incessant bombardments of northern Israel to an end by driving the Palestinians out of artillery and rocket range, and second, to relieve the beleaguered Christians of southern Lebanon and assist the Lebanese army leader Major Sa’ad Haddad, who commanded the Christian soldiers when the Lebanese army disintegrated. With his help Israel could establish a security zone where his South Lebanese Army could protect the local inhabitants and keep the PLO from reoccupying the area and hitting Israel.

Although the Palestinians were full of swagger and arrogance when they bullied unarmed Lebanese Christians, they fled in panic before the Israelis. Most of their Muslim leftist allies threw their militia uniforms away, hid their AK-47s, and blended back into the population of Elkhiam and other Muslim towns and villages in southern Lebanon. In a few days the Israelis achieved their first goal, driving the Palestinians north of the Litani River. The Israelis withdrew from Lebanon three months later after achieving their second goal of strengthening the South Lebanese Army. By the time Israel withdrew, the area protected by Major Haddad had expanded from three small enclaves to a continuous strip of land along the Israel-Lebanon border.

The Lebanese Shia sect of Islam had not yet been infected by the radical pan-Islamist fundamentalism that would sweep the Muslim world in the wake of the Iranian Revolution one year later. Although the main Shia militia, Amal, supported the National Front/revisionist coalition politically, it did not participate in the opening stage of the war.

Israel negotiated an agreement with the United Nations under which the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon was to take a position between the PLO and the SLA security zone. (In practice, UNIFIL was to prove less than helpful.) The UN troops ended up with a halfhearted policy in dealing with PLO or Muslim terrorists trying to get into the security zone and Israel. If they caught a terrorist trying to pass through their area they would take his gun away and return it to his militia leader. All he had to do was get it and try again. I don’t think he was told to go stand in the corner unless it was for failing his mission in the first place. If he had a bomb, the UN would keep that but let him go without any form of detention or punishment. The UN troops seldom ventured outside of their bases unless they were in a supply convoy or relocating. None of them wanted to be killed in someone else’s war.

As a result of Operation Litani, life became a little easier. Although there were still occasional rocket and artillery attacks (most of which originated from the area “controlled” by the United Nations), the shelling was not as bad as it used to be. You could still be killed by the occasional shell falling out of the sky, but at least the snipers were gone. Life could return to something that resembled normal. School was much safer to attend now. But I would no longer be attending the private one I had gone to all my life. My parents could not afford to send me there anymore. Now I would be going to public school.

Money was scarce, as I was finding out. I had some idea that we had money in a bank but were unable to get to it because of the fighting. What was obvious was that Papa was not working. The restaurant was closed and no one was renting apartments. I did not know that we had no income from the government because Papa had collected his retirement all at once. I thought that it was not coming because of the war and problems in our government.

I came home one day to see a strange man in the room with my parents. My mother was handing him a handful of gold teeth and bracelets. The man handed her cash in return. I realized my mother was selling the gold fillings in her teeth and whatever jewelry she had left to help pay for food and the books and other things I needed for school. I now understood why she and my father had gone to the dentist the month before and got all their teeth pulled out and decided to wear dentures. After the man left I asked her, “Why are you doing that?” She told me that we were getting low on money. I couldn’t understand what had happened to all the money we had in the bank. I knew we were wealthy. After all, we had servants before the war and lived a good life. The little money that had survived was gone. That’s when they told me about what had happened to my father’s life savings: that it had burned when the house was bombed. I was shocked and frightened when I heard their words. I realized we had no hope. I couldn’t get a job even if I wanted to, at least for six more years. My father was seventy-four years old now and deaf, and he had difficulty walking after four years of sitting endless hours in the humid, wet shelter. I realized I was going to have to take on more responsibility in the family.

We continued our bare existence with Israel’s help and support. The opening of the border created needed commerce for many in the security zone. The crossing became known as “the Good Fence.” The Israelis set up an office to process daily visas for the Lebanese who started going in for business and work. Many people from the security zone went to work inside Israel in many fields, including agriculture, hospitality, and the service industry. They were able to make a living, earn shekels, and revitalize our own little economy by spending their earnings in town. A few people became businessmen importing Israeli meat and chicken and selling it in the stores. Some entrepreneurs became money changers, or chauffeurs driving people to the border and back. My parents and I, however, couldn’t take advantage of this work opportunity. They were very old and I was still too young. My only comfort was knowing that in case of any medical need we could turn to Israel, which was our only lifeline. Israel had opened its hospitals free of charge to any Lebanese in the security zone that needed medical help. Some people had open-heart surgery, brain surgery, and many other procedures that they otherwise would not have been able to get. As my parents were older and had no financial resources for medical care, Israel was the rock we could lean on. Most of us couldn’t even go to any other hospital in Lebanon no matter the severity of the illness, because if we got out of the security zone, the Muslim militias would kill us as traitors.

While Israel created opportunity and breathed life into our existence, the combined forces of Muslims and the PLO suffocated any type of normal life. Because of their bombardment of our area, the major employment centers, such as the bank, the hospital, the electricity plant, the water plant, government offices, business offices, and the movie theater, were closed.

One technological development of the West that would influence and become a major factor in my life was television. Before the war I had always hated it when my father would get engrossed with the news in the evenings. Nobody could talk and nobody could change the channel. Now TV was a welcome diversion, a major form of entertainment, and a source of information. During our long days and nights in the bomb shelter we operated a small TV on a car battery. It was my window to the world. It was also my comparative window to cultures and societies in the Middle East. The greatest thing it showed me was the differences between how people and governments treated people in their countries.

On Israeli TV I saw people from the government visiting with schoolchildren my age and talking with them as if they were concerned about their well-being. I never saw anybody from my government come and visit with us. I sensed a greater equality between men and women in Israeli society than there was in Arab societies. Women seemed to be working side by side with men. I did not realize how the influence of television would eventually affect my opinions and then my behavior. As I slowly became Westernized in a society that lived according to Middle Eastern customs, I was setting myself on a collision course with my Arabic culture.

Whenever we were lucky enough to get a couple hours of electricity, I would watch not only the news but American programs such as
Dallas
and
The Love Boat
that ran on Israeli and Jordanian TV. I fell in love with the people, the language, the culture, and the music. There was an opulence on
Dallas
that was another world compared to the one I was living in. The romance and glamour of
The Love Boat
swept me far away from the regimented and restrictive nature of Middle Eastern courtship between men and women. What I really came away with was a determination to learn English. I knew that if I ever wanted to leave Lebanon and go to America, I had to speak the Americans' language. I considered it my ticket out of hell. I knew I would have to be ready with knowledge of the language so when the opportunity presented itself I would be able to use it.

TV became my English tutor. All the American shows were in English, with Arabic subtitles at the bottom of the screen. I would write the Arabic subtitles on the palm of my hands and then a phonetic rendering of whatever English word was spoken when the subtitle appeared. My second language, French, came in handy, helping me link subtitles in Arabic with what I heard. Since we were low on water and didn’t shower daily, I would build up a big vocabulary on my hands and up and down my arms. Since there wasn’t much to do during the day, I would study and practice the words and phrases on my “notebook” in my hours of endless boredom. I never got any real practical experience talking in English, but I had it all in my mind, ready to go. I got to the point where I was comfortable listening to the English dialogue and understanding a lot of it without reading subtitles. Despite the hopelessness and difficulty of the situation, I had a vision for my future and the will to figure out how to prepare for it.

As a result of the military support and social services provided by the Israelis, our way of life began to improve somewhat. We were getting electricity for about two hours a day now and water for about two hours every other day. However, the presence of the Israelis in southern Lebanon also meant more targets for the enemy. Now the Israelis were even closer to them, in their land, on their roads, and in their cities. Shelling attacks from the Islamic and Palestinian fighters began to increase as they adopted new tactics. Before, their barrages had been predictable. We would know when the Palestinians were going to attack, and an announcement could be made to alert the town. Shops and schools would close, and we would be able get to shelter before hell fell out of the sky. But now, everything would be peaceful, and then all of a sudden the world would explode. An attack might last for days, and then, just as suddenly, everything would go back to normal.

Just before Easter, 1982, we went without any shelling for twenty-two days. It gave us a glimmer of hope that perhaps we could prepare for a normal holiday. In Lebanon, Easter is the biggest holiday of the year for Christians, as big as Christmas is for Christians in the West. Mama was sewing me a velvet dress for the holiday—actually, modifying one of hers to fit me. As I stood in front of the mirror, trying it on so Mama could see where to adjust it, all I could think about was what Chuck would think when he saw me wearing it. Chuck and I had become very close. I was seventeen years old and he was twenty-two. We cared about each other a great deal. It wasn’t love with goose bumps, but the kind of feelings that made me think about him all the time and worry about his safety. I would constantly pray for him. He looked out for me and cared about my parents.

In this year when normalcy seemed to be returning, I was able to be deeply involved with the church and again sing in the choir. We practiced every day for a whole month before the holidays. After choir practice we would hang out with the priests and the nuns. We teenagers would eat, joke around, bake cakes, and prepare gifts for the needy. Chuck was Greek Orthodox, and he also sang in his church choir. After his practice, he would meet me at my Maronite church, and then we would walk home together.

The week before the holiday, everything felt different. Since we hadn’t been shelled for twenty-two days, we started getting used to living normally. We felt free and happy to be alive, appreciating every minute of those days of calm. I don’t know what it was. Maybe because spring was in the air. Maybe it was something about being seventeen. Maybe it had something to do with my special friendship with Chuck.

Chuck and I met every day that week, without arranging it. It had become a routine. He would walk with me to my church up the hill about fifteen minutes away, and we would talk and laugh—he had a great sense of humor. He would pick flowers from the side of the road and give them to me. We weren’t in love, exactly, but we knew that there was something deeper that we couldn’t explain. We liked flirting with each other, knowing it was safe. We knew we cared a lot about each other and that we wouldn’t do something stupid that would mess up our relationship. As we walked back every night, we would talk about school and our dreams, what our plans for the future would be if we stayed alive. It’s funny—we always included the possibility of death in our plans. Death was a part of our lives. Chuck would talk about how he would like to finish college if he stayed alive, and I would tell him about how I wanted to become a doctor if I survived the war. This type of conversation seemed very normal to us.