The view from Beirut

An American in Lebanon warns that despite Bush's efforts, Arabs will likely view an attack on terrorism as a war on Islam.

By Paul Wachter

Sept. 21, 2001 | A few days after the attacks on New York and Washington, the new U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Vincent Battle, toured the southern villages of Hasbaya, Marjayoun and Nabatieh. Asked if he felt safe, the ambassador said, "I'm wearing a short-sleeve shirt," pointing out that he wasn't clad in body armor. This self-assurance hardly gelled with the official statement the ambassador made the following day, when he said Lebanon was still harboring groups that Washington considers as "terrorist." It was a clear reference to Hezbollah, the Syrian and Iranian-backed Shiite movement whose stronghold -- the formerly Israeli-occupied south -- Battle had just visited.

But the ambassador's earlier, offhand and implicit departure from protocol had an obvious explanation. In the wake of the terrorist strikes, as the United States drummed itself into a war frenzy, Battle wanted to reassure Americans living in the Middle East. And as a tiny, but conspicuously hateful, percentage of Americans continue to harass -- and even murder -- Muslims, Arabs and people they mistake for them living in the United States, Americans in the Middle East can't help but wonder if they'll receive similar treatment once President Bush's "war on terrorism" commences.

I have lived in Lebanon for almost three years, studying at the American University of Beirut and writing for the local English newspaper. During this time, I have watched CNN in a room full of Arab students, including Iraqis, as U.S. warplanes pummeled Baghdad; I have walked through campus as students demonstrated after Israeli, U.S.-made fighter planes bombed power plants and bridges outside Beirut; and I have even stood among the faithful as Hezbollah triumphantly paraded captured tanks following the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. At no point during my time in Lebanon have I felt unsafe because I'm American.

Nor do I now. (Whether I'll feel safe from U.S. bombers if there is any substance to reports that Osama bin Laden may have fled to Lebanon is another question.) After the attacks, television clips endlessly replayed Palestinian celebrations in refugee camps in the West Bank, giving the impression that the Middle East erupted with joy at the news. Yes, there were also sporadic, short-lived celebrations at a couple of camps in Lebanon. But aside from these, neither I nor any other Americans I know (including some in other parts of the Arab world) have witnessed any public or private displays of joy following the Sept. 11 attacks. On the contrary, my Lebanese friends called me to offer their sympathies. Strangers approached me and did the same. Nonetheless, I am worried that once the scope of America's "war on terrorism" unfolds, I may, for the first time in Lebanon, have reason to fear for my safety. And the fear is no less real for being anticipatory.

War blurs the distinction between a government's foreign policy and its citizens, a distinction that was obviously and tragically not appreciated by the WTC and Pentagon murderers. It is a distinction respected neither by Palestinian suicide bombers nor those Israeli soldiers who fail to acknowledge the difference between a man with a gun and a boy with a stone. The distinction was also erased during Lebanon's bloody civil war, which claimed 170,000 lives and -- as Westerners will recall -- saw the kidnappings of numerous Americans and other foreign innocents. War emboldens the worst, most jingoistic elements in a society -- people like Frank S. Roque, the man suspected of shooting and killing a Sikh gas-station owner in Mesa, Ariz. "I'm a patriot," Roque said when he was arrested. "I'm a damn American all the way."

The Bush administration is certainly concerned about the Middle East's response to Washington's impending war. Like his father before him, on the eve of the Gulf War, George W. Bush is reaching out to his friends in the Arab world, much to Israel's concern. Washington is assuring King Abdullah of Jordan, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak -- a monarch in all but name -- that this war is not against Islam or Arabs, a point he also made in his address on Thursday night.

But the fact remains that this is how a campaign that targets the Muslim Middle East will be viewed by millions of Arabs and Muslims -- most of whom do not condone the Sept. 11 attacks -- especially if Washington's strikes coincide with an Israeli escalation in the occupied territories.

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