Wednesday, July 19, 2006

message to the people of israel who are reading this blog

for the israeli people who commented on the drawing "we resist" below,

did you notice that i am drawing on the light of a candle under the bomb in the drawing that shocked you?
did you try to analyse this (highly complex) metaphore of resisiting the bombs with the pen?
did you notice by the way that almost all the posts of this blog are drawing?
do you think it is funny to draw under the bombs? do you suspect me to like it?
after knowing me for 7 days, do you really think that i have nothing better to do than "resisting"?
i have to admit that i have a long beard (frightening, isn't it?), but do you imagine me with an explosive belt?

do you have a sense of humour?

did you think for a second that i might be "resisting" to talk about politics since i began this blog?
do you think it is the right moment to find out who's fault it is?
do you know the smell of a burning kid?

do you have decency?

please do not reply to this email and post more comments.
IT IS NOT A POLITICAL BLOG.
if you insist to try to explain to me the reasons of what's happening (did you hear of 1948 by the way?), i am sorry but i'll have to block your comments.
if you're not happy, write a complaint to the UN.



for the israeli musicians, painters, writers, thinkers, intellectuals and for all the israeli in israel and around the world who sent us supportive emails and comments,

we know you are here.
we know you are hearing us.
we know you are hearing the bombs getting down on civilians and kids.
kids from lebanon.
kids from israel.
kids from al over the world.

we know that like us, you feel ashamed.

we know you are not a lot.

but we shall meet one day.
when our people will wake up.
in 10.000 years.

please continue sending us your emails and comments, here and wherever you can. we need to know you are here. and that you are more than what we expected.
WE NEED YOU TO RESIST.

58 comments:

  1. i'm a portuguese who makes drawings for living.
    The only thing I feel like telling you Mazen is THANK YOU for drilling beauty from uglyness.

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  2. Mazen,

    Merci pour tes dessins, merci pour ta grandeur, merci pour ta beauté...c'est grâce aux gens comme toi que je me dis non, je ne pourrai jamais rester loin du Liban, non je ne pourrai jamais me séaprer de Beyrouth et de ses habitants qui embrassent la vie même dans les moments les plus sombres...

    Merci encore une fois...

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  3. I haven't hear the comments from other Israelis, but just wanted to say that like any other people, we have our idiots and our more intelligent folks.

    I hope and believe that we have more smart, thoughtful and good hearted people on both sides and that we shall meet sooner than in 10,000 years. Peace - Ma'asallame.

    An Israeli mom who can't sleep now, too worried about her kids.

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  4. Hello Mazen – as an Israeli who watches the bombing on TV and understand the pain it causes I’m feeling the strong urge to try and explain to you why your people have to suffer so much so needlessly. It is because, dear Mazen, you are sharing a country with an extremist bloodthirsty fanatic terror organization sworn to eradicate Israel while understanding its very existence depends on survival of this ideology. Unfortunately for the people of Lebanon, they made a fatal mistake when did not confront Hezbollah and its own government did nothing in an attempt to regain true sovereignty over their own lands. Now to your very horror you discover that this terrorists care little for your lives or economy, while attacking Israel inside it’s UN recognized borders after the Israeli army left Lebanon’s soil 6 years before that – without consulting the elected government. Now these so called “protectors of the Lebanese people” have built their headquarters and bases inside the urban streets of Beirut and among the villages of south Lebanon and use long range rockets which they lunch blindly into Israeli cities killing Jews and Arabs alike. Understand Mazen – these rockets are fired from inside the populated urban eras, and the terrorists’ strongholds and rockets arsenal are hidden inside “innocent looking” houses. So why does your people have to suffer? Because for the past 6 years you let the Hezbollah take roots among your population – inside urban places – and the Lebanese people and the Lebanese government did nothing and simply let it happen, also allowing Hezbollah to acquire arms, rockets and missiles from Syria and Iran. Now dear Mazen – the Israeli government – unlike your government – is not going to seat aside while terrorists do as they please: kidnapping legitimate border guarding troops and firing blindly into populated cities. Unfortunately, because of Hezbollah foul and cowardly tactics – hiding behind civilians – they and you in a way – have left us with no choice… Hezbollah will pay and anyone near any of its bases, storages, militants, supporters or armament will be in harms’ way. My advice to you: get away form Hezbollah’s forces and cry out against them – very soon we will rid this region from their military threat but the real chance for true everlasting peace between us is only possible if you start doing something to rid this world of Hezbollah’s dreadful ideology and existence – so it not longer a key player in the relationship between us.

    I wish you no harm
    Eran, shoham, Israel

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  5. HELLO MAZEN
    look, i undertand you' i really do!
    i understan you suffer from the bombing/
    i am a musician and im to' in a shelter in israel, affraid from the hizbulla bombing!
    what you have to realize is that we dont want this war. we left lebanon- becouse wanted to put a stop to all of this, we made a big mistake. 24 years big mistake and we corrected it! we have widthrawn from south lebanon in order to hae normal life to us and to you= the pepole of lebanon.
    but, your leaders made a lot of mistakes! they had let the hizbulla build a terorist headquarter in beirut and south lebanon' they didnt send the lebanon army to the border in order to maintain the sis fire and maybe making a peace agreement.
    you- the free civilians of lebanon did nothing agains it, did not demonstrate against the fact that the south of beirut and all of the south of lebanon becomes a teror`s nest.
    we ' the israeli's did not have a choise and you know it!
    im sitting in a shelter' and suffering, exactly as you do- but im willing to do so!
    why? becouse i know the price im as an israeli civilian who live in the north of the country have to pay for the war, is a price warth paying. this war, will crash this hizbulla terorist- and in the end, you and me papal and azen will not have to worry about those fondementalist terrorist who ruind your very beutifall country and wants to eliminate my country.
    i hope you will understan.
    hopefully,
    papal

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  6. by the way I would love to hear your opinion, Mazen, regarding my last comment - i would've given you my Email - but I fear it will be used malisiously by other viewrs less eager to talk it over. just write something down in your blog - I will read it.

    hoping for better times
    Eran

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  7. Hello,
    I hope you are ok and I want to thank you for your blog. I hope you had something good to eat today and a decent internet connection to keep posting.

    I am not an Israeli. I am a Jewish woman in San Francisco USA who plays Arabic music. I have family and friends all over this conflict. It is people like you who are our best chance for peace.

    Susie
    aka sooozhyq (pronounced susie-Q)

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  8. Dear Mazen,

    I looked on you blog with real admiration and was truly impressed and touched.
    I am an Israeli who lives in USA.
    I want to tell you that I feel lot’s of sympathy for you the innocent guys trapped in this hell.
    Unfortunately the story of humanity looks like a long war that moves from place to place, and never ends. It is in Darfur, Kongo, Somalia, India, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, Russia and so on. We all ask questions about these wars and we have all kind of answers.
    The fact is that the wars are always here and I do not see it ending.
    As a neighbor I hope in near future we will be able to share a peaceful life.
    My sympathy to all of you the innocent civilians.

    Zvi
    USA

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  9. that last part, about israeli intellectuals and artists and how we all will meet someday.. that touched.

    i'm not hear to talk politics.
    i'm here to say that israel, like lebanon, is filled with many good people, who want no more than to live in peace, and i truly hope, as you say, that we will meet someday, frightening beard and all.

    i have a friend with a real passion for drawing, much like you i guess,
    and i hate to picture him in a shelter, fearing the bombs above his head, and i feel the same with you,
    and i'm sorry, really.

    be safe.

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  10. I have a dream - one day, I wish I could leave tel aviv with my private car, drive through Lebanon and Syria to europe.
    Remember Mazen, we allways react, never act. and we will react to your hand if you will just reach it too! peace between israel and lebanon people

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  11. Mazen - in the cellar!

    I was truly moved by your blog - as much as I got angry at comments here explaining you very elaborated and eloquent why they are sorry having to kill you (as a collateral or direct hit) as well as trashing the whole (with Israel economically and culturally very well competing) infrastructure of your country.
    Bomb as a collateral benefit a competitor away.

    Its shivering how brutal-cool-nazilike some have become whose forbearers suffered so painstakingly under the terror.
    The (de facto) non-religious fanatic zionist dead-enders (in Israel and elsewhere) as well as the criminal muslim fundamentalists, doomed like the Tyrannosaurus rex, blinded by their sharing prime motives - greed & hate.

    Both backward thinking stone agers from different companies (same wine in different bottles) are unable to look in the mirror and see that they became more and more a exact mirror of their counterparts - enemies.

    My hope is that worldwide a modern and educated youth on all sides of any river or mountain (Israel, Christians, Muslim, Budukudo, Agnostic - whatever) will overcome the current old military juntas and send the fascists in all entities to where they belong - in the trash-can of history.

    In the young people and artists there is our only hope.
    The rest of society as succumbed to dumb stomping and getting along with whatever there served.

    YOU - artists of all branches can wake our dump peoples up.

    You are a part of that hope.
    Stay alive!
    Keep your resistance & happiness - dont let hate towards anybody blinding your thinking.

    take my apology (to Israelis & Lebanese alike) to the appalling cowardly reactions of our EU representatives (dwarfs) towards the killing and atrocities going on.

    My condolences - a lot of folks, intellectuals and artists are with you Mazen!

    I'm sure we shall meet once in Vienna - or "next year in Jerusalem" - if not exactly next year - soon in this life.

    No way it will take 10.000 years

    - and keep your beard - :-)

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  12. hello
    iam writting you from a shalter in haifa because ... (you know why)
    i know and i anderstand your pain BUT you need to understand that we NEVER WANTED this to happen .but becouse of the kidnaping of the 3 soldiers with out no reason, it is no right to tell that the israelis is bad!
    for almost 60 years the Arab States and the terrorist organization making a hard life to us and to the PEACE that we all need!
    the israeli gavermant can only to talk diplomatic with the Arabs but the real solution is need to come from the inside and not from the outsinde.
    and the last that i wont to say is I HOPE FOR THE PEACE TO COME QUICKLY that we all could sit down and talk like a human beens. i hope you all well and be carfull!

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  13. dear eran,
    i already answered your post by saying at least 3 times on this blog that I DO NOT WISH to talk about the conflict of the middle east. this is not my purpose and I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS KIND OF ARGUMENTATION RIGHT NOW. i have other priorities for the moment. sorry.

    dear other israeli surfers,
    thanks for your comments.
    i am receiving a lot of supportive emails also.
    we know you exist. we know that you know we exist.

    dear israeli mom,
    let's hope both our kids will grow up to see a peaceful land one day.

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  14. Hi eran & New World!

    Who would want to argue with anybody sitting in a shelter?

    We pray honestly for your well-being - but I cannot resist:

    If you really think that the ongoing atrocities perpetrated by a Israely army towards totally helpless innocent civilians, intentionally bombing their escape routes. destroy grandmas water suppy & eletcricity for papa, is proportionate?

    Do you honestly believe creating about 500.000 homeless in 72 hours and laying a sovereign country with hundered of tons of bunkerbluster bombs in ashes is a a fair deal for the prison taking (in a war that the right terminus for soldiers) of a border guard (in exchange for 11.000 palestinians in prison since more then a century)?
    Then - you better do a reality check - as soon as your out of your cellar.

    What outcome could have this shoot out - F16 and tanks against kindergardens, water tanks & civilian blocks?

    What kind of strategy is this besides creating more hate and more terror? Or is THAT the real strategy - to have a continous population exchange by slow moving earth burning?

    And one thing more - if someone dont like the outcome of a democratic election he has to accept it - like I have to accept our current government here I have not elected at all.
    I have to find a peacefull, eloquent way (and young Israelis are known for being highly educated & eloquent) to deal with it.
    That is how democracy works.
    Like it or not.
    Much more if elections concerns another country.
    If one would bomb bcs. he dont like a voting result he would be rightly named a terrorist - right?
    That would be opposite how democracy works.

    Look in the mirror &
    Take care.
    Shalom

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  15. I thought you said this wasn't supposed to be a political blog? Then you ask if we have heard of "1948", as if that's not a political question!

    Yes we have all heard of 1948: In 1948 the Arabs rejected the UN partition plan for British Mandatory Palestine (75% of which Britain had already illegally given to the Hashemite Sherif of Mecca as a political prize for supporting them in WWI, thus creating the state of Trans-Jordan - itself a "Palestinian" state, though ruled by faux-royal "occupiers" from Mecca), Britain finally withdrew from the remainder of Palestine (having welched on its previous support for a Jewish state), and the Israelis were forced to declare their own independence after the Arab rejection of the UN partition plan. The Arabs then declared war on Israel, and Israel soundly defeated them.

    Anything else you would like to know about "1948"? Are you saying "1948" (i.e. the establishment of modern Israel) justifies terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas?

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  16. Thank you for your historic lecturing dennis - we are always happy to learn from the elderly.
    
Would you kindly elaborate more on the self-creation of modern Israel with the help of the outspoken zionist terror organizations "Stern Gang", the "Irgun", ohamei Herut Israel לח"י - לוחמי חירות ישראל and the rest of the comrades please.

    This all leads to nowhere.
    ok?
    
What I would wish much more than an answer from you is, if this kind of discussions would not come up anymore & endlessly by the slowly wearing-of sting of the elderly "never forget" party - forgetting and bending reality deliberately always when appropriate for own goals.
    Everybody has its share of dark history - there are no angels neither devils. What is there are different backgrounds, ideas and different means to achieve them.
    The time of peace has come. Not because it is logic or even desirable for the profiteers of continuos head-splitting but bcs there is no other way left - except a holocaust on Palestinians - which are the real problem. Not lebanon or the Arabs.
You see - its time a young fresh and unbiased generation takes over with a robust will to peace and cooperation - and not endless finger-pointing.
One should know when its time to retire - some have to be reminded or forced out.

Shalom

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  17. Dear Mazen

    I heard you speak on JJJ radio, Australia this morning.
    Thank you Mazen...and thank you JJJ.
    JJJ is nation wide and has a huge audience (particularly that morning show). Hundreds of thousands of Australians would have heard you speak this morning! Excellent!

    I'm sorry this comment is so long but once I started I just couldn't stop...

    I am ashamed to tell you that most of the information we get on the news in Aus. is biased and uninformed, ignorant opinion. For the most part, the news in Aus. Has been almost completely focused on the Australian citizens caught in Lebanon, trying to get out. I wish the best for them...I really do...but my concerned is not limited and saved only for those that we think of as 'ours'...it is for all of the innocent victims of this insanity, and I hope you know that I am not alone in that. Heaps of Aussies want to know more...want to resist...and are seeking out the important information.

    My weak heart breaks for you and your family and for all of the others who find themselves trying to survive this violent madness. But what good is it for me to sit here, alone in my study feeling sadness for you all? I guess I can tell as many people as possible about your blog (and others). I can offer you contact with the other side of the world?...new music? ...Art? ...An exhibition? ...Contacts? ...Some lame bad Aussie jokes? ...Something completely ridiculous and trivial? What ever!...just ask. I can make a bit of noise...resist!

    You must possess a strength that I cannot possibly understand. I admire your strength, your style of resistance, your courage to be a witness...

    Your art is honest
    Your art is strong
    Your art is beautiful
    Your art is important
    I am moved by it
    I am educated by it

    It saddens me that you are a witness to these atrocities...I wish that wasn't the case for you...but it is you (thanks for that Israel) and because it is you, Mazen the artist, the muso, the resistor, the blogger, the husband and father, people can look, can learn, can be inspired... Your role is so fucking important! You have to know that. Without art the world could be even more fucked up than it already is. Art has given us some of the most honest, insightful and powerful historical accounts throughout time.

    Anyway...what do I know...maybe I'm just talking shit...

    I guess I want you to know that your ideas have reached the other side of the planet. I'm thinking of you and your family and friends. I am grateful for your courage and strength. I hope you can keep working and I hope this insanity ends before there is too much more pointless suffering.

    Cheers
    Emily Jane

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  18. Elderly?

    Instead of addressing issues, just presume your interlocutor is "elderly"? As if age would invalidate what one says anyway?

    For the record I'm 32, and I am not an Israeli. Perhaps in some parts of the world 32 may qualify as "elderly", but really, address the issues please - don't presume to know someone's age and to dismiss them on that basis. Such an illogical method of argumentation.

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  19. I am an American citizen, and I am ashamed for the U.S. stance on the war on Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories. Not all Americans support Israel unconditionally, and I think the current Israeli government has made a serious mistake in setting the army on a rampage. The whole world is watching, and the rhetoric of the U.S. and Israel do not match at all what is happening on the ground.

    It's a dirty shame that the Israeli government has to sacrifice their own people, including their soldiers, for their political unilateral vision of the Middle East. It's a shame because it won't work.

    And it's a shame that our administration, in all of its complete idiocy, has supported the Israeli government in its actions.

    Because all of us, including U.S. citizens, will pay.

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  20. Hi,
    I found this blog because the biggest Israeli news site www.ynet.co.il wrote about this blog among other Israeli and Lebanese blogs.

    Your pictures and writing are/is beautiful.

    I live in Tel Aviv and can tell you most Israelis want peace.
    However, Israeli's know how to resist and Israelis are willing to fight back.

    Your "we resist" picture to my perception shows a people who dont know how to resist. And blame the wrong people because blaming the hizbullah for instance would be too dangerous. they live in your neighbourhood and would make you suffer if you resisted.
    As I can completely understand this doesnt make you hate Israel less and you have every reason to hate Israel.
    I feel sorry for your people. I feel sorry Israel has no choice but to attack.

    What would you do?

    I think maybe nothing, you would not be as bad as Israel. After all, you didnt resist the Hizballah, so yes I beleive you wouldnt have reacted as badly as Israel... You just dont react right?

    Thats what happens in a repressed society, the civilians have no rights and their voice isnt heard.

    Its a pity as all the Arab people I have ever met are wonderful and hospitable, if only they could get their governments to look after real civil interests.

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  21. Dear Mazen.

    We have a famous singer in Israel who says: There is no justice in wars, children die too.
    I want to add that there are no triumphs in wars, only losses.
    Please hold on and keep lighting up these dark dark days with your beautiful drawings.
    Thank you,
    Your Israeli Jewish sister.

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  22. I am Israelian. I am currently abroad, but my parents are scared there near Haifa.

    Yes, I feel ashamed and sorrow for what is happening between our countries. And for what is happening to our people.

    > do you know the smell of a burning kid? - Our kids are also killed by bands from all over the Arab world.

    War is ugly thing. As well as politics.

    Good luck to you.

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  23. Dennis and Allon and other,

    what are you doing right now ?

    you repeat an argumentation which is the one of israeli prime minister.
    anybody who has access to internet is able to read it on cnn or bbc. no need to repeat it here. no need for "moral" justification.

    but there is an urgence : the terrible situation of lebanese people (you already the numbers) and the country's destruction must be stopped.

    it is important also for you and Israel because this war feed the extremism. can you imagine the situation in Middle-East if Lebanon is completly destroyed ?

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  24. We love you Mazen!

    Gandhi taught us that the only way for the innocent and powerless to fight violence and opression is through non-violent resistance - he wove cotton, marched, starved, collected salt.

    Our friend Mazen writes, draws and plays music - this is the path to peace.

    "what if they gave a war and nobody came?"

    peace

    peace

    peace

    phil

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  25. What can I say? What can I do? ...
    I knew you when Berna Wang make a link in her blog (http://www.lamiradaoblicua.bitako.com/),last 16th.

    I've reading you since then. I need reading you. I need feeling I'm with you. All of you.

    I detest everybody justify the violence. All of them.

    Love from Catalonia (Spain)

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  26. dennis and comrades

    You did, as elderly usually do (no matter what age you are - sorry you argue like a old but not necessary wiser person repeating propaganda in times where children are burning under rubble), not read what I wrote and your obviously immune to reality.

    Fine.

    The issue is:

    what determines the statues to become a "terrorist" or a "terror organization" (like Irgun, Stern Gang. Hisbollah, ANC e.g.), is not determined by the actual tools they use (terror as a means) or aims they may have but by rooting in society and determination - the final word has the verdict of later history.

    Otherwise Israel would not exist in first place.


    As for the Brits would then have decided : "with terrorists we dont discuss." and the land would belong to the rightful poor peasants till today.
    I dont want to argue if this would desirable or not or that the Brits have given away what they did not own in first place - its a historic fact that Israel (even thought without defined borders neither having a constitution - two cornerstones of a normal state) exists as it exists.

    And from there on one should work to bring peace to the region.

    There are thousands of historic examples that terror is a tool only - like a bombing from a F16 is a tool but never a organization. And a tool should be used with a aim - I fail to see the wise strategy behind the current rampage killing and impoverishing civilians on a mass scale.

    Terror is the weapon of the poor - F16 of the rich.

    Think of the bombing of the King David Hotel in which only civilians died ordered by David Ben Gurion. Both Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin, head of the Irgun, would later become Israeli Prime Ministers.

    Same goes for Nelson Mandela, head of the ANC who was featured especially from the USA as fierce terrorist of the purest water - only to become later much applauded South Africans first black president.

    Hizbolla is running hospitals, education, feeds the helpless and also has a military arm.
    The former is overlooked. If history is any guide and if one is not totally blind he sees that a organization so deeply rooted in several societies (like it or not) makes a suitable partner for a political settlement. One cannot choose a discussion partners out of a children's book suiting him - never - and that is exactly what Israel tries with bombing opposition to the stone-age,

    Israel tries to bomb & install the proper partners to their taste (the current president of lebanon was actually a USA approved choice) to and from the political discussion / settlements tables - this will not work - if history provides any lesson.

    If Olmert would be real brave he would try to settle for peace - any peace is better then any war - but he is a not very impressive civilian wanting to fit his bug forebear's shoes and sets on the military card without having Sharons charisma or brain - bad for Israel, bad for us and bad for the US.

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  27. will this argumentation ever stop?
    dennis you have nothing better to do than reading my blog? get yourself a book man, it might be more interesting for you. can't you see that I DO NOT WANT to know who's fault it is?

    thanks for all the rest, the friends from all over the world and especially the israeli people that i do not know and who are posting these courageous and supportive comments.

    a kid is a kid. i do not care for what is written on his fucking passport. stop killing them! the lebanese and the israeli ones. all the kids of the world.

    i do not, by any mean, hate israel, like i do not hate any other country in the world. do somebody find it normal by the way to hate a whole country? this would be a too easy argument.

    ReplyDelete
  28. CNN - not exactly a hizbollah media - today titels:

    Lebanese overlooked in evacuations
    As nations scrambled to ferry their citizens out of Lebanon, one group of people has been all but forgotten -- the Lebanese.

    How deep can a people sink by voting for that crying atrocities...

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  29. Hello,

    I came across your blog through an artical at Israeli news bewsite ynet.

    I'm an Israeli artist living in Tel Aviv, and though I've been scared and shocked ever since this started, you have given me the first actual tears from this war. I was feeling dead on the inside since this started and you really moved me with your words and your art.

    I'm not going to talk about politics, i don't have anything to say about politics, I don't know enough about the history of either nation to start analizing why things turned out the way they did, hell, I don't think anybody can explain why so many people need to die in a horrible way.

    I feel ashamed of my country, I feel scared for my family and friends, I feel sad for all the people who have lost their loved ones and homes for the sake of nothing. I don't know that many people, but most people I know in Israel feels the same as I do. We all want this to end. I don't think this war is justified, it feels random and stupid.

    I'll keep following your blog, I will add you to the list of people I worry about through this. I hope this ends soon.

    I really have nothing comforting to say.

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  30. mr.KERBLOG i am so sorry to know thhat you suffer from bonbs but you never draw how it begin.
    nobody attack lebanen without no reason .hezballa are not part of lebanen they imported from iran to protect you agsainst noenimy israel does not have any problem with lebanen but we must thruout the cancer who want to destroy us .
    god halp you .
    god bless yoy .

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  31. to eran levi,all the honor from me you reprezant the israely authorety as best as can be (pleas forgive on the broken english)

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  32. haflo1

    "Have you no decency Sir?"

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  33. Hi Mazen,
    It's very important for me to tell you and everybody that is suffereing there with you that we support you. We understand you and we can't believe it.
    We hate this, and feel disgusted with all the stupid unreasonable killing.
    I don't think I have words to explain, just tell you we'll try to help. Just tell you you are not alone.

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  34. Mazen,

    I´m here to send some suport for you from Brasil. DOn´t Give Up! Lebanon is too small to be divided, but is too big to be swallowed.

    Hughs
    Rafael Saldanha

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  35. ,,,and to beautifull to be lost.

    Lebenese are historiocally known as the fastest recoverers known to mankind & evolution - so -
    I plan a visit in autumn this year in Beirut to have a cup of tea with you Mazen.

    Servus from Vienna

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  36. Israel is my cuntry!
    and we are strong.. and we will kill all of the Hizballa pepole!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    I dont know you but i know that we just protect us!!
    i have friends in Hifa.. and i know what heppend.. its not good for you.. but its not good to us too...

    Israel forever!!!!!

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  37. and you know what?
    when people die in your cuntry we are knoe what you feeling
    but when people die here
    your cuntry go to the streets and happy..
    the Hizballa want to kill us..
    thay hate us.. but we are much strong..
    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    i dont hate you.. i just nervis!!

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  38. Solidarity.

    Stay alive Mazen.

    ReplyDelete
  39. hila!

    If you would exchange in your superfluous and primitive remark the words Israel with Hizballa and vice versa then you mirror your virtual enemy by 100%.
    Get a mirror and have a good long and hard look.
    See?
    Then you see what your really fighting,
    Simple minded folks living by spilling propaganda like you are the core of all the trouble.
    Please go away and get a a more up do date education.

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  40. dear servus,
    thanks for taking care of answering all this blind, deaf, brainless comments that are posted all day long.
    you should try beirut in autumn. i am sure the flights will be cheap!
    waitinbg for you,
    mazen

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  41. Matzen:
    servus in Vienna means hello or shalom - and me, the sender is boris - And I instruct you to remain alive so In can have tea with you - and not let misery steer your art.

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  42. I really don't want ANYBODY sit in a place they have to worry about a bomb falling on their head. Maybe except for those who throw bombs themselves, unfortunately those rarely find themselves in that spot...
    Hope there will be peace in your region sooner than later!

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  43. Mazen, I am so moved by your drawings and comments, and so ashamed that my government (U.S.A) is complicit in this atrocity by vetoing UN resolution against the war, and by it's support of this Israeli reaction. Your drawings give me hope that the individual is what matters, not nation-states. Thank you.

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  44. human is an animal who thinks, thinks, thinks and kills.

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  45. Mazen*

    i hope Peace finds U & all the people of Lebanon & Isreal & Palestine & Iraq & everywhere in the World very soon*

    We Canadians are so lucky to normally avoid this crap called war*

    But even a family from Montreal lost 7 members from their Family in Lebanon who were Canadian*

    Only then did we wake up a little from our perpetual sleep*

    It's sad*


    Peace*

    namaste*

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  46. My dear friend Mazen, your plight and that of the people of Lebanon pains me.It sends my heavy heart to a place beyond politics, agreements, logic, reasons...... a place of sadness and then beyond sadness to a place of prayer that becomes the language of the heart through poetry. My prayer for you today was written by Pablo Neruda and I hope it speaks to you in this moment that only you can know. All my brotherly love and sincerest wishes for peace, Eliud in New York City


    Walking Around , by Pablo Neruda -

    It so happens I am sick of being a man.
    And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie
    houses
    dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt
    steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.

    The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse
    sobs.
    The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.
    The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,
    no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.

    It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nails
    and my hair and my shadow.
    It so happens I am sick of being a man.

    Still it would be marvelous
    to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
    or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
    It would be great
    to go through the streets with a green knife
    letting out yells until I died of the cold.

    I don't want to go on being a root in the dark,
    insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
    going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,
    taking in and thinking, eating every day.

    I don't want so much misery.
    I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb,
    alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
    half frozen, dying of grief.

    That's why Monday, when it sees me coming
    with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
    and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
    and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the
    night.

    And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist
    houses,
    into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,
    into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,
    and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.

    There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines
    hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
    and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
    there are mirrors
    that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
    there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical
    cords.

    I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,
    my rage, forgetting everything,
    I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic
    shops,
    and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:
    underwear, towels and shirts from which slow
    dirty tears are falling.

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  47. thank you all for your words of sorry and shame. this massacre should be stopped for both sides. knowing yesterday that two kids were killed in israel makes me vomit.
    stop killing kids you fuckers!!!
    stop now!!!
    please...

    ps: eliud thanks for bbringing back pablo's words. by the way did you ever tried to read fernando pessoa? this is a fucking great poet/writer.

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  48. dear mazen,
    i'm a portuguese young writer and i think your blog is so strong and touching. i think that rationalizing a war, like some people try to do, is not a proper behavior - there is no excuse for war and suffering, everybody knows it is not the way out of anything, for god and ala sake!! (please be ashamed, everybody, of the leaders who try to convince you it is!) as for you mazen, do us all a favor: keep safe and, if possible, try to get out of there... remember: you can draw everywhere, but not dead. i can understand your position, though, and must admit that's pretty courageous. exposure to extreme fear and life risk are so hard, still... if you die tomorrow you can't denounce what really happened to the world anymore. of course, can also understand you're more worried with people around you and their safety than the "world" as a virtual entity. there is no world, there are slices of world named countries and human brutality.
    x.

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  49. Sending you love, abundant love

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  50. I know there are improvisors in Tel Aviv and Jeruselum who do not like this or want it.
    They are good people and good musicians, too.
    Itis sad that such good musicians who are so close cannot work together....

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  51. Am happy to see all of you interacting on this blog.

    A campaign called "SAVE LEBANON" has been released yesterday
    The aim of the campaign is to scatter the cruel photos of this war worlwide to stop the war.

    www.guidetofreedom.org/savelebanon.htm

    The movie reveals the humanitarain violations against infants & normal civilians.

    www.guidetofreedom.org/savelebanon.htm

    please visit the above link asap

    peace for all

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  52. Mazen, I hope these words find you relatively safe and sound. Plese tell us how you are doing and what, if anything, we can do to help you personally and beyond.

    You've been on my mind as I watch the bullshit American mass media "coverage" of your country's difficult journey. I have photo-bloged an image ( http://static.flickr.com/78/195018478_7374b7dfc2.jpg )with the Neruda poem to call attention to your plight and "resistance". For those Israeli brothers and sisters reading this, I realize that like in America, the "inmates" have taken over the asylum and, sadly, for right now there is no peace or justice for anyone.

    By the way Mazen, thanks, I haven't read anything by Pessoa yet......please suggest any particular work of his you’ve liked. Well my brother, stay strong....the world is watching, listening, feeling, praying for the people Lebanon!

    Love and Peace to ALL our brothers and sisters in the middle-east......let PEACE reign supreme!

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  53. Mazen

    I can't imagine how terrifying and horrrible life must be for the Lebanese people now, but it would be presumptious me to even try. Please accept my sorrow and pain that this is happening to you and your people. I am also sad for the Israelis who are suffering. My mother and grandmother were born in Palestine before the 1930's and though I come from a Jewish heritage I am heart-sticken that this has happened to all us who are children of what was once a multi-cultural state. My uncles all attended The University of Beirut. It pulls at my heart to see such suffering on both sides.

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  54. Hi. We are here, and want to hear your voice. Please read this letter we've been sending out to Lebanese contacts:

    "We are a bunch of young Israeli filmmakers and the like, based in Tel Aviv. As we strictly oppose the ongoing bombing of your country by our country, we thought how to put in use the little power that we have - the control of visual media - in order to contact our brothers sitting in Beirut.
    Our goal is to create an interactive dialog, through the net, between us and you - being young thinking people who object the war, the bombing, and the ruthless fighting. We would like to create a place of solidarity between neighbours, between human beings being dragged into war.

    We would like to let you know that our hearts are with you.

    What was our idea?
    Well, for the past day or so we sat and tried to build some sort of site on the net, that will be a screen for short clips, talking heads of people talking to each other, sharing their feelings and thoughts on this shameless war. All in the name of solidarity between humans, and for peace. Not to think of political solutions, but rather create a dialog of growth.

    How will we do this?
    By uploading short clips to this site, we'd like to create a chain letter of "talking heads" - Tel Aviv peace fighters talk to their Beirut bothers, and the other way around.

    We are trying to find more Lebanese contacts, and recruit them for this mission pf peace.

    We do not know what's the physical possibility of filming and uploading in Beirut is, but we can start by talking through messenger, or emailing. If this is of any interest for you, you can contact:

    Yasmine.novak@gmail.com

    and we can continue from there.

    Take care,

    Yasmine, representing "Hayarkon 70".

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  55. Hello from here, Scotland,

    I find the bombing and other attacks on Lebanon horrifying, shocking, upsetting, insane. :-(

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  56. mazen,

    thank you for showing us the best way to fight against the war...

    stop terrorism
    stop wars
    stop killin people...

    take care and go on...
    we believe in you...

    save your hope...

    from istanbul,Turkiye

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  57. "Helpless" has a a dream "to drive THROUGH Lebanon and Syria to europe..." [emphasis added]. I have long dreamt of visiting all the beautiful places of Beirut described by Khalil Gibran and Hanan al-Shaykh (whose gorgeous words made me fall in love with the Mediterranean long before I moved to Tel Aviv from New York) and to hear Mazen in concert under a clear and starry and INNOCENT sky. That beauty is now burning and scarred and I ache for the people who have lost the beauty in their lives. ... and the beautiful lives being lost. Mazen keep sharing your visual and musical poetry with us - I hope the people pushing the buttons see it, hear it. Because I don't think they have any clue what beauty is ... and I wonder, therefore, if they know what ugly means? Do we know if your work is reaching those button pushers? If anyone out there can send it that way -DO!

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  58. YOUR BLOG IS VERY POLITICAL and that is a compliment! your artwork is poliical and that is a good thing. by calling on folks to start a blog and to erase the silence, you are acting politically and as an activist for Lebanon and for social justice.

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