PHOTOS COURTESY OF MARLA ABOUJAWDEH
QUICK LEBANON FACTS
Location: Middle East bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Israel and Syria
Climate: Mediterranean mild to cool, wet winters with hot, dry summers Lebanese mountains experience heavy winter snows.
Area-comparative about 7 times the size of Connecticut
Population: 3,874,050 July 2006 est.
Religions; Muslim 59.7 percent
Christian 39 percent
Other 1.3 percent
Languages: Arabic (official) French English, Ammenian
Source: The CIA World Fact
book, https://www.cia.gov/cia/
publication/factbook/geos.html
the country were closed. For the next week the family was stuck with no way out.
VIRTUAL
In the past 50 years, Lebanon has been racked with conflict between Christians and Muslims, but that is not what the current conflict is about. In understanding its conflict, it's more important understand the past two years ther than historical context in the middle East, Haider-Markel says, is everything from the war in Iraq, Hamas winning the Palestinian authority, to Syria wanting to assert itself, he says. Hezzballah has been able to sustain itself as separate government inside banon because it is funded and med by Syria and Iran. Historically, he two big powers in the Middle east have been Iraq and Iran. With ug weak and unable to threaten neighbors, Iran and Syria we become stronger. Because banon borders Israel, this is used
as a threat, Halder-Markel says. Facing that threat, having its own soldiers kidnapped and seeing a growing power in Iran, Israel fell to arms.
demonstrate its strength, he says. "This is why so many people feared this could spin out of control," he says. Any sort of conflict in the Middle East could inflame the region."
until it called them. No one called. It never updated the evacuation information online. In their next two visits to the embassy, the family was
"MY INITIAL GUESS WAS THAT THEREWOULD HAVE ONLY BEEN A THOUSAND AMERICAN CITIZENS THEY NEEDED TO TAKE OUT. IT TURNED OUT THEREWAS ABOUT 10,000 THAT NEEDED TO GO."
On Friday,
July 14 the
Aboujawdehs
checked the
U.S. Embassy
Web site for
information and
names with the e.
The embassy told
DONALD HAIDER-
MARKEL,
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF
POLITICAL SCIENCE
information and registered their names with the embassy in Beirut. The embassy told them to stay put
not even allowed inside. Outside, things were a mess. Pat, the girls' mother, says she was frustrated with the lack of information they were able to get from the U.S. embassy. "It was like a mob of very frustrated and frightened people wanting information," she says.
Although the family felt uneasy about the lack of
control, they were still safe. Maria was still going out at night, and she says that people were coming
to their town from Beirut. Once the bombing started, however the family was restricted to where they could go. They stopped going to the beach. They stopped going to Beirut. They stopped doing activities outside of their town because places where they used to take trips were being bombed. For the next week they waited in Broumana without word from the embassy.
The idea behind the evacuation was to get people out of southern Lebanon. Foreign governments like France and the U.S. tried to help, but getting civilians to a port or airport was a problem because any movement was dangerous, Haider-Markel says. "My initial guess was that there would have only been a thousand American citizens they needed to take out." Haider-Markel says. "It turned out there was about 10,000 that needed to go." He thinks the embassy also underestimated
A week after the airport was bombed, the family called an aunt in the U.S. for help. The aunt found out from the Department of State that the evacuation was on a first come, first serve. The Navy was shipping U.S. citizens from Beirut to Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, south of Turkey. The family immediately tried to get on a ship, but it was too late.
the number of American citizens in Lebanon and ended up being completely unprepared.
The next four days were a blur of frustration. The family heard from authorities that about 25,000 Lebanese Americans - were in Lebanon at the time, and Pat says that about 10,000 wanted to leave. At 8:45 a.m. on Friday, July 21 on a bridge in Beirut, the Aboujawdehs could see the USS Trenton Navy transport ship in the water. Two military trucks created a narrow passageway for a mob of people
waiting in unordered anticipation. U.S. Department of State officials were there to assist the Lebanese military, but they were anything but helpful. The Aboujawdeh's evacuation was about to begin.
This is the most violence the area has seen in five or 10 years, Schrodt says. Two things surprised everyone: the extent of Israel's retaliation and how well-armed Hezbollah was. "Israel said, 'Well guess what. If you mess with us, we'll mess with you,' Schrodt says. "It was sort of done on the level of a kindergarten playground but with real bombs. Now, what made the evacuations difficult was that this escalated more quickly than anyone expected."
After standing in line for eight hours, the family boarded a ship that was already full. The next 13 hours were spent on the ship's deck with two or three cots for five people. 09.21.2006 JAYPLAY <11