The Lisa Goldman Affair: Drinking Lebanese Coffee in Tel Aviv
We would have imagined all kind of controversial scenarios commemorating the 1 year anniversary of the Lebanon war except the Lisa Goldman scenario…
We could have expected seeing the politicians blaming each other for the war, for the consequences, for the UN resolutions…
We were expecting the Divine Victory theory versus the Disaster theory…
All these issues that we have been hearing since July 2006…
But the scoop was Lisa Goldman, the Canadian-born Israeli journalist who decided to commemorate the first anniversary of the war in her way…in Beirut…
Suddenly everybody forgot the Divine Victory, the disaster, and the sufferings of the Lebanese…
Everybody wanted to know how that Israeli journalist entered to Beirut (TWICE), prepared a report that was aired on the Israeli Channel 10 TV and left without any problem…
Hezbollah used the Lisa Goldman affair to attack the Seniora government forgetting that right after the war, the security apparatus of Hezbollah granted a pass to an Israeli journalist (with a foreign passport) to visit the security square in the Dahyia…
Short memory???!!!
So, the Lisa Goldman visit to Beirut…what an affair!!!
So much has been said since Channel 10 aired her report…
How do we qualify her act?
Courageous?
Dangerous?
Unethical?
Yes she broke the Lebanese Law (not allowing Israelis to enter to Lebanon)
Yes she lied about her identity, her work and the purpose of her visit
Yes she put innocent people’s lives in danger
But her act goes beyond these mere realities…
No, her act is not heroic…heroism in the Middle East is another connotation for death, for negativity, for intolerance…
Goldman’s visit was a leap into the future…a visionary visit…
A visit that gives the person a feeling of complete FREEDOM…
A visit that gives the person a feeling that everything is possible…that no borders, no laws, no hatred can stand for ever…
Drinking Café Najjar coffee in Tel Aviv…Eating Bamba in Beirut...
That is what the Lisa Goldman affair is about…
P.S. This is not a pro-Lisa post, it is a "enough suffering and wars in the Middle East" post
We could have expected seeing the politicians blaming each other for the war, for the consequences, for the UN resolutions…
We were expecting the Divine Victory theory versus the Disaster theory…
All these issues that we have been hearing since July 2006…
But the scoop was Lisa Goldman, the Canadian-born Israeli journalist who decided to commemorate the first anniversary of the war in her way…in Beirut…
Suddenly everybody forgot the Divine Victory, the disaster, and the sufferings of the Lebanese…
Everybody wanted to know how that Israeli journalist entered to Beirut (TWICE), prepared a report that was aired on the Israeli Channel 10 TV and left without any problem…
Hezbollah used the Lisa Goldman affair to attack the Seniora government forgetting that right after the war, the security apparatus of Hezbollah granted a pass to an Israeli journalist (with a foreign passport) to visit the security square in the Dahyia…
Short memory???!!!
So, the Lisa Goldman visit to Beirut…what an affair!!!
So much has been said since Channel 10 aired her report…
How do we qualify her act?
Courageous?
Dangerous?
Unethical?
Yes she broke the Lebanese Law (not allowing Israelis to enter to Lebanon)
Yes she lied about her identity, her work and the purpose of her visit
Yes she put innocent people’s lives in danger
But her act goes beyond these mere realities…
No, her act is not heroic…heroism in the Middle East is another connotation for death, for negativity, for intolerance…
Goldman’s visit was a leap into the future…a visionary visit…
A visit that gives the person a feeling of complete FREEDOM…
A visit that gives the person a feeling that everything is possible…that no borders, no laws, no hatred can stand for ever…
Drinking Café Najjar coffee in Tel Aviv…Eating Bamba in Beirut...
That is what the Lisa Goldman affair is about…
P.S. This is not a pro-Lisa post, it is a "enough suffering and wars in the Middle East" post
posted by Laury Haytayan at 3:06 PM
5 Comments:
Amen to that!
Living in London, we always go shopping in the Lebanese grocery on Kentish Town road. Its the only place that tastes like home. From what my Lebanese friends tell me, Beirut and Tel-Aviv should be twin cities - they are so alike!
If only we could send Nasrallah, Assad, Ahmadinijad and Halutz to play somewhere else, we could enjoy our commonalities (and our nuances) instead of dealing with all this non-sense.
After all, if Lisa's visit shows anything, it is that Israelis do have a genuine interest in Lebanese.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
yishay...until tel-aviv and beirut become twin cities...i am happy to meet u on facebook....
lisa...suddenly all our problems disappeared...and we were all after one major danger...lisa goldman...
Beirut is a madhouse...I love it and I wouldnt want to live anywhere else..I think I will be bored...I am not used to sanity...I am addicted to the Middle Eastern insanity
Survival and Fear are best friends...
Some technical aspects of Lisa's visit :
Lisa should have 2 passports : the Canadian one and the Israeli.
Her Canadian passport contains no data about Israel ( visas,stamps, etc. ) , because she must enter Israel using her Israeli passport. So she can freely visit any Arab country, Syria included.
If she were only a Canadian citizen and visited Israel before, she couldn't travel to Lebanon.
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