My Friend is a Refugee

by Michael J. Totten
My friend Lebanon.Profile at the Lebanese Political Journal once guest blogged for me while I was in Egypt. He is one of the most open-minded people in Lebanon when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and I have linked to some of his posts in the past on this very subject. Israel has lost him. And he has lost his country.

You’ve made this country unliveable for the people fighting to disarm Hezbollah.
Guess what? I’m leaving. Yep. Me.
Where am I going? Syria. Didn’t want to, but I have to. The people we marched against are the ones you sent us begging to. The people who assassinated our leaders, kept us from having an operating democracy, and who armed Hezbollah are laughing it up because they’ve won the game because of you.
Bashar Assad said Lebanon would be destroyed if he left. I didn’t know the Israelis would play into his game. It’s not surprising that Syrian-allied Hezbollah started the mess, but you guys are just vicious.
All my Hezbollah supporting friends are sticking around. They call the rest of us cowards. I guess we are. We want to do scientific research. We want our children to learn how to play the piano. We want to watch our stock porfolios burgeon. We can’t do that here any more.
I tried to sympathize with you. I didn’t support Hezbollah, and if you look at the posts before this conflict began, I was maligning the political parties that oppose Hezbollah for not doing enough.
I even gave you guys the benefit of the doubt at the beginning of this, as did most Lebanese. Even the Shia, Christians, and Druze in South Lebanon understood your position. Not any more.
Oh, well. I’m a refugee.