The last annual summit of Arab Heads of states in Damascus, in March this year, was met with a chorus of apathy on the streets of Amman, Cairo, Casablanca, Gaza and every other corner of the Arab world. The only thing that seems to get people to turn on their TV sets is the perennial (and always entertaining) Gaddafi speech, with the average Arab viewer wondering just how far the Colonel will go in his latest oration.

It is difficult to blame the Arabs for deriding their league. The seeming impotence of the Arab League in the face of adversity is quite legendary. As the situation in Palestine, especially Gaza, deteriorates, as the cruel civil war wages in Iraq (not to mention the illegal invasion that sparked it), as the Darfur situation worsens, the Arab league stands totally powerless. And this is just a snapshot of the current crop of crises in Arabia. The history of the last six decades since the founding of the League in 1945 is deluged with examples of the Arab League’s inefficiency and incapacity to resolve any of the major issues facing the region.

But then, in the midst of all this inaction, we woke up one morning last week to the sight of a truly extraordinary and improbable achievement: a real Arab League success. The Arab League’s success in brokering an agreement between the endlessly feuding Lebanese factions is a major triumph of unprecedented caliber. Of course, particular credit is due to the Qatari Government and the few Arab Foreign Ministers who devoted their time and energy towards the attainment of this goal in the period leading up to the agreement. But it was the institution of the Arab League that made this entire effort possible and, despite all our instincts to disbelieve, we should all recognize that.

The success is particularly laudable in light of the initial inability of the Arab League to put a meeting together quickly enough to respond to the surge of violence in Lebanon that started earlier this month. When the decisions of the Lebanese government to dismantle the telecommunications network of Hezbollah and to remove the security chief of Beirut airport unleashed an unprecedented reaction by Hezbollah on the streets of Beirut, it took the Arab League almost a week to get the Foreign Ministers of its members to meet.

When the Foreign Ministers finally managed to congregate, most Arabs didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. With Beirut burning for several days, the sight of this belated meeting was discouraging to say the least. And we all were betting on the usual result, i.e. a few speeches, a couple of incidents, and then the dignitaries pack up and head home on the earliest flight.

Somehow, Arab will manifested itself, with the rival factions of Lebanon compelled to agree to attend a meeting in Doha, Qatar, as a direct result of the meeting of the Arab League. Even then, we all thought it was a meeting doomed to failure. As the days wore on in Doha, we were sure it was all going nowhere. As leaks broke through informing us of the latest disagreement, we all shook our heads with the usual air of resignation mixed with disbelief.

And then, despite all of our misgivings, the Arab League managed to do what Sarkozy, Bush, the United Nations and many others have failed to do: Secure a deal amongst the forces of the great Lebanese divide that had brought the country to a standstill for 18 months and was about to take the country down the dark tunnels of civil war.

Lebanon is now celebrating the election of Michel Suleiman as its new President, filling a vacancy that has persisted since November last year and that could not be resolved through 19 previous attempts in Parliament.

In all of this, credit is due to the indefatigable nature of the Arab League’s Secretary General, Amr Moussa. I have always marveled at his extraordinary capacity to soldier on despite the failure of Arab countries to reach agreement on any major political issue.

As we reflect on this achievement, there is a lesson for us Arabs that is worth noting. We seem to have taken cynicism in the Arab world to new highs. We are artists of self-deprecation, and not of the charming, Hugh Grant variety!

I am not belittling the reasons for our cynical or defeatist outlook. We sure have tons of reasons to be downcast about the present Arab predicament. From coast to coast, Arab countries face daunting challenges ranging from civil wars to a seemingly unstoppable and downright scary proliferation of religious extremism. The helplessness with which we watch crisis unfold is enough to put anyone in a state of anxiety or depression.

But it is time to try and snap out of it. And one way to do that is to try and inject a few more ounces of self-belief and belief in some of our institutions. Or, to be more precise, perhaps part of the answer to all the problems we face in the region lies in applying ourselves to work patiently to improve the lot of our institutions and systems, such as the Arab League and various national institutions.

The answer could be in a little bit of application and effort towards our current systems. For example, many Arabs rightly worry about the chronic lack of democracy in Arab countries. And in this state of eternal concern and sarcasm, they leave any institutions that have some semblance of democracy to fall prey to either the thoughtless or the extremists amongst us. Any knowledge of the history of true democracies shows that many of the oldest democracies developed with time, with Parliaments and their processes improving through the effort of citizens. The British Parliament was a highly imperfect institution and it took the dedication of people throughout centuries to work within that institution and lead it to where it is today.

The same is true of more effective models of regionalization. The European Community did not reach where it is today without the commitment of people to its symbolism and the effort of a number of thought leaders. This process managed to turn centuries of war into a period of great economic harmony that was unimaginable to most in the aftermath of World War II. The Gulf Cooperation Council is fast becoming almost EU-like in its ideals and practice. The Arab League could in turn yet prove itself to be the nucleus of a major change in Arabia. One important area is that of the economic role of the Arab League.

HH Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashed, the Ruler of Dubai, suggested two years ago an idea that could prove pivotal if applied. He suggested an annual summit of Arab leaders that focused purely on economics, and ways to improve the economic situation of all in the region. In other words, the League could have one annual summit for politics and one for economics. How refreshing would that be? With Arab Presidents and Kings gathered to focus entirely on economics, the room for rhetoric would diminish further and the opportunity for effective brainstorming would widen.

And so, today, as we reflect on a major achievement of the Arab League, and the sense of timid hope that prevails in Lebanon as a result, let us for one small moment exercise that emotion that has eluded us Arabs for so long: Optimism.

There was a war over there.

Her father had once stood with her and spun their globe. His finger covered the entire country. He pointed it out with the white crescent at the top of one nail. Sirena had squinted at the small blot, its name printed in a nearby sea. She imagined that the whole country was probably the size of her elementary school and pictured the blue and red hallways packed with tall men and women who looked just like her dad.

Sirena couldn’t remember when the war had begun. Her father said it started a long time ago. Her sister Aisha was ten now, two years older than Sirena. Aisha couldn’t remember when the war started either, but she said she was six when the first phone call came, and she could remember how things were before it happened. Aisha said Baba smiled a lot more and he used to read stories and sing songs before bedtime. Now he just tucked the covers around you and said, “I love you, baby. Sleep well,” before flipping down the light switch and pulling the door almost shut.

“The war,” Aisha had said, and she said it with authority, “changed everything.” In the last four years, there had been five phone calls, each reporting the death of yet another cousin, aunt or uncle that the girls would never meet. Of the calls, Sirena could only remember two. She was afraid this might be the third phone call she would come to remember.

Sirena knew about war because her Baba had explained it to her when she asked him about it a few weeks before. He told her that lots of people argued about God. He said that sometimes they had the same religion, but there were small differences between what they believed, and when they disagreed, the trouble would start. When people got really angry, they would try to hurt each other.

“That’s what happened with the Jews,” Aisha had told her. “I heard Baba say that if it wasn’t for the Jews there would be no war in Lebanon and we would be there instead of here. But the Jews are greedy and they want to kill everyone. I was playing spy and listening while he was talking to Mama, but she caught me and asked me what I heard. Then she told me that there was a bad man named Hitler and he hurt the Jews. Baba got mad and said it was no excuse. Just because the Jews felt sorry for themselves, that didn’t mean it was okay for them to hurt the Palestinians like they did. And now they’re hurting the Lebanese.”

“Then what happened?”

“Mama sent me outside while she and Baba had a talk.” Aisha put her hands over her heart and made sure Sirena was looking in her eyes. “Right now, Jews are over there hurting our family.”

Sirena felt sad and angry at those Jews. “Why?”

Aisha shrugged and flicked something from her fingers. “Dunno. Some people are just mean.”

“Do all Jews hate us?”

Aisha shrugged again. “Maybe. Joshua at school doesn’t like me, and he’s a Jew.”

“Oh,” Sirena said, and thought of a girl at school who was really nice, and wore one of those stars on her necklace.

Her father had talked to her about the war one other time. He said it was the reason their family had never been to Lebanon and might never have the chance to go. Baba had told her this over breakfast one morning, sipping coffee and scooping up eggs and beans in a folded piece of bread. Sirena had leaned forward, fist under her chin, wide eyes narrowed in concentration, the way she always did when Baba explained any matter of life to her. There had been a stack of buttered toast in the middle of the table. After Baba finished counting off his friends and family members who had been killed so far and whether by bomb or bullet, his face a mask of resignation, every piece of toast had become cold and wet, but it didn’t matter to Sirena because she had lost her appetite anyway.

The disturbed rumble of her father’s deep voice filtered into her room. Sirena pushed her yellow-flowered sheets aside and put her narrow feet on the floor. She peered over her shoulder at her bedroom door. It was open just a crack, and, if she squinted, she could see across the hall into the darkness of her parents’ bedroom. She inhaled deeply and held her breath, waiting for their doorway to light up. Light would mean nothing was wrong; that her father was going to use the bathroom and then go back to sleep. Maybe this would a prank call or wrong number. She waited until her eyes became accustomed to the dark before releasing her breath. Her mouth tasted like she’d touched her tongue to a battery, and her stomach was in knots.

There would be no light tonight. She’d known it from the second the volume of her father’s voice spiked—he had to talk at a near shout to be heard over a bad connection.

Sirena stood up and straightened her blue “Daddy’s Girl” nightgown, letting it fall down over her knees. Occasionally, in her dreams, she was the one bravely calling her father and hearing his courageous reply. She was issued a rifle like the ones in the U.S. Army ads and fought alongside her relatives whose faces she knew from the black and white photographs Mama kept in a music box on her dresser. She made the call with mud smeared across her cheeks and some faceless cousin lying dead in a puddle of blood beside her, one hand reaching up and grasping her own. These dreams made her chest tight and her face wet with tears. Mama said it was because she had a kind soul.

The cool material of her nightgown against her warm skin reminded her that she was awake. This wasn’t a dream. She needed to know what was happening. She pushed her wild, dark hair out of her face, and sinking one hand into the mass to hold it back, tiptoed around the corner of her bunk bed toward the doorway.

She heard Aisha moving around with their younger sister Hadeel in the next room. She stopped, listening through the silent wall separating them, glad she was alone to investigate. Sirena opened her door very slowly, stopping it before it creaked, and stepped onto the worn carpet in the hallway. She inched toward her parents’ brown door, halting suddenly. The crackle of whispers invaded her ears. Her mother’s lips were producing comforting noises, her hand rustling against Baba’s shirt, on his shoulder, between his shoulder blades. The places where Mama always put her soft hands to comfort seemed ominous and threatening as Sirena squinted at them through the dark. The sounds were uncomfortable. The air smelled wrong, night-breathing that had turned sour. She waited.

She heard a man’s voice—like her father’s but pitched higher. Sirena moved closer to their doorway, freezing mid-step. Was someone else in the house? She hadn’t heard anyone come in. She peered into her parents’ room. The streetlamp outside their window cast enormous shadows on their bare, white walls. Mama said they wouldn’t waste money on decorations when the family overseas needed it. Sirena pushed their door open a little further so that she could see the stranger who must have come with the phone call.

Streetlight fell across her mother’s solemn face. And her father’s shaking shoulders. Her mother’s hands worked rhythmically on his back as Baba’s shoulders trembled harder and harder. The stranger’s voice was his.

He turned to look at Mama, and Sirena saw a tear on his thickly bearded face. Baba put a dark hand up in the air, the palm facing his cheek, and shook it gently forward and backward in a failed attempt to slice away whatever pain had come with the phone call. He turned his face down and placed his hand on it. The stranger’s voice stopped for a moment. A deep breath rasped against his dry lips and soggy throat, then the voice came again, in whimpers.

“Froggy throat, soggy throat,” Aisha would have teased, but Sirena wasn’t laughing. With warm shame on her face for witnessing her father in a moment of weakness, Sirena stared at her feet, sundark and olive. She tunneled her toes into the thin gray carpet outside her parents’ door for a moment before turning away.

Aisha had come out into the hallway and was poised in front of her bedroom door. Her hair was like Sirena’s; thick and dark, and standing off her head from sleep. She had one arm around little Hadeel’s shoulder. Hadeel gazed into the darkness. Brown curls sprang angrily from her head in all directions. Her pink nightshirt was twisted around her small body and partially tucked into her ruffled panties. She kept her tired eyes wide open, and she looked at Sirena suspiciously.

“Who was it?” Aisha asked quietly, taking a small step in front of Hadeel. Sirena looked at her younger sister, who was now peeking around Aisha’s side, clutching at the hem of her oversized, tie-dyed Spring Fling T-shirt. This would be Hadeel’s first phone call. She was old enough to remember this one.

Aisha leaned forward and gently poked Sirena’s shoulder. There was a probing, unanswered fear in her eyes that Sirena responded to with a lone nod. The two looked at the floor silently for a moment, mourning the loss of yet another family stranger. Aisha’s eyes tightened and she ushered Hadeel, who stood tense with awareness that something was wrong, back into their room. Hadeel went silently but with a thoughtful look on her face, as though she were piecing together a puzzle in her mind, as though she almost understood and had suddenly aged past four-and-a-half as a result.

Sirena headed back to her own bed, pausing briefly to listen to her sisters crawl under the same set of sheets. Aisha would take the outside of the bed to make sure Hadeel wouldn’t roll off while sleeping. Sirena considered joining them but left them to each other when she heard Aisha singing Hadeel “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

A vicious anger took her so that she trembled with the memory of her own first phone call, of waking up in the middle of the night, cold because it was winter. Aisha had squeezed her hand and piled extra blankets on the bed they were sharing, but Sirena couldn’t stop shivering. The cold in the air wasn’t just from the frost outside. Now she felt hot and stifled. She wanted to bang on the wall and yell at Aisha to stop singing, or maybe to change the words.

It should be: “There’s a land that I heard of where all our family dies.”

Sirena bunched up her pillow and focused on the cool of her sheets blanketing her legs. She turned from side to side, pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped the covers around her head to block out the still sour air. It was just her and her pillow in here. Her sisters were already asleep. Her parents too. The apartment was again silent. No ringing phone, no muffled cries. It seemed even the crickets and cicadas had stopped chirping.

She thought of how she would go with her sisters in the warm, Texas summer morning and collect the cicadas’ shells from the back yard. They would gather them with spoons and forks and put them in empty ice trays, then crush them up just because they made a crunching noise. Later their mother would scold the girls for using her good silverware. It was a joyful game the sisters played every day. But Sirena wasn’t looking forward to the joys of tomorrow. She could still hear her father’s small cries in her mind. She stared at the empty bunk above her, wishing that it was Hadeel’s week to sleep in her room, and willed her father’s voice to fade from her ears. Instead, she fell asleep to the remembered rhythm of his pain.

When morning came and they were collecting their cicada shells, Sirena and her sisters were asked to please come back inside. In the dining room, where they could still see the small square of brightly lit, fenced-in yard behind their condo, Baba told them their great aunt was shot by a sniper. His words scratched at the air and he spoke between stilted breaths. They waited, standing side-by-side, oldest to youngest, staring at him. They waited for some sign that everything would be okay. But Baba just looked beyond them. His eyes were swollen and his face was hard. The girls stared until Mama ushered them back outside.

Sirena and her sisters began to file through the sliding door. Sirena went first, but paused. Hadeel bumped into her and Aisha whispered harshly, “What’s the hold-up?” Sirena toed the doorframe, one hand resting against the glass.

“What is it, baby?” her Baba asked.

Sirena hesitated, uncertain but needing to know. Finally, she said, “Was it the Jews?”

“What?” Mama asked, her voice a bit panicky. “What?”

“The person who shot Aunty Samira. Was it one of those Jews?” Sirena repeated.

Her father hung his head and shook it from side to side. Her mother stood away from him, the hands that had been quietly massaging his back now hovering uncertainly in the air, her mouth silently working.

“It probably was a Jew,” Aisha said matter-of-factly, ready to steer Sirena outside. “Everyone knows they’re a bunch of lunatics. It’s their fault there’s a war. All they want to do is hurt people—”

“It wasn’t a Jew.” Their father cut her off before Aisha could make the triangle on her face with her thumb and pointer finger; the secret sign she and Sirena had come up with for a big Jewish nose.

“Then who was it?”

He looked up at Sirena from under his bushy eyebrows and sighed, “A Druze.” At the same time Mama said, “It doesn’t matter.”

Sirena looked back and forth between them. Baba spread his hands, then straightened up. “Your mother’s right,” he said, “It doesn’t matter.” His voice became deep and resonant. “Go ahead, girls. Go outside and play.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Mama called after them, already turning her angry eyes on Baba.

Sirena wanted to ask what a Druze was, but her mother’s voice had that edge of finality that caused even Aisha to shrink in on herself. She bit her lip, angry and confused, and followed her sisters outside. The three moved in a silent line, crouching forward like a small army. Outside, they collected more cicada shells, this time crushing them under bare feet and between fingers, pretending they were gunshots crackling through the air.

S. M. Ayoub is a Lebanese-American mother, wife, writer, and recent graduate of Indiana University’s Creative Writing Program with an M.F.A. in Fiction. She keeps a daily life blog at “The Days Are Just Packed” and is currently putting together Islam on My Side – an anthology of Muslim American experience post 9/11. Ayoub lingers on themes of the Lebanese Civil War and resulting diaspora, as well as islamophobia. Her poetry has been published in The Oxford Review.

Being Muslims, many of our brothers and sisters are not working for peace. They are misguided, mistaken and spreading the virus of hatred and revenge through telling deliberate lies, disinformation and false accusations, which is resulting in death and misery for number of innocent people living around the world at the hands of merciless

KILLER MUSLIMS and also bringing bad name to Mohammed (PBUH) who never killed anyone in his life time.
Instead of teaching about Good & Evil, certain Radical Muslim Clerics are only “Trading in Religion”. They teach us about accusing, abusing and killing the non-Muslims. They try to hypnotize us to Hate and Kill the non-Muslims and brethren of other sects or be killed and without using any common sense, we readily believe in whatever is being said

by these Hate Mongers. Actually, they are “Agents of Satan” who is paying them heavily and in return they are cutting at the very roots of the Ummah. Instead of “Mourning” most of the Muslims are rejoicing on the brutal killings of the non-combatant innocent civilians and “The Murderers” have always been “Our Great Heroes”.

Before it is too late and the Curse Of God falls upon us, we should use common sense, find out the TRUTH and must change ourselves to save Muslims from becoming the most “Hated, Isolated, Discredited and Suspicious” people in the world. We must start working for promoting “Sectarian Harmony and Religious Tolerance” in the society

and should prove to the WORLD through our deeds that Islam is not a religion of Zero Tolerance and Mohammed (PBUH) teaches “Love & Peace” and not Terrorism, Barbarism, Extremism, Sectarianism, Cruelty, Inhumanity and “Hatred & Killing” of the innocent civilians.

Islam is a religion of peace. Islam teaches respect and love for all even the animals. But many narrow-minded Muslims have so far failed to learn anything good from the teachings of Mohammed (PBUH) who preaches love for the peoples of all religions. We are far away from the basic principle of Islam i.e. “Enjoining the people to do Good and

forbidding them from Doing Evil” and thus, possess no quality of the civilized society. Unfortunately, many of us show Zero Tolerance towards others and have wrongly learnt few thing to be called as good Muslims and those are “hate” the non-Muslims and “Accusing, Abusing and Cursing” the non-Muslims. …act of madness?

The killing of others in the name of religion is a Sin. Can a FATHER ever teach his Children to be the permanent Enemies of each other? The time has come for us to stop readily believing in whatever is being said, read and written by the LIARS / Hate Mongers. Unfortunately, some misguided-Muslims believe that the Holy Koran and Holy Prophet

(PBUH) both have instructed Muslims that the opponents be KILLED and that they are simply following the orders. We should use our own common sense and only believe which is logical, convincing and in the best interest of the humanity.
Why do we hate others so much, may be they are better humans then what we are. My feeling is that the Muslims should unite to discredit and deactivate the fringe mullahs (Preachers of Hate) who promise a quick trip to paradise to people who have little and sacrifice themselves with bombs strapped to their bodies. If the mullahs (THE LIARS)

thought that it really was a way to paradise they would be strapping bombs to themselves! Their followers are kept too ignorant to see this for themselves and enlightened Muslims should educate them. We must promote understanding and peace. We are all watched by the same God and need to help one another, not Hate and Hurt.

Our contention is that the WORLD should resolve the conflicts facing the Muslim World to stop the terrorism. Unfortunately, all the disputes facing the Muslim World are our self created. The root causes of all the disputes are based on the Muslim Philosophy of Hate against the non-Muslims. The Muslim literature, teachings and preaching are

spreading and injecting this hatred in hearts and minds of the Muslims. Our intolerant behavior is further proved by the root causes of all the pending conflicts that we (Muslims) cannot live side by side in peace with the non-Muslims. All the disputes facing Muslim World can be resolved easily, only if we (the Muslims) are able to condemn the

“Philosophy of Hate” created in us by our past and present elders who have divided the peoples of the world in the name of “Religion, Cast and Creed”.
Fellow Muslims! If God is one and he loves mankind, we should value each others life and strive to protect each other than thinking that if we kill we shall have reward. God looks at human beings not as belonging to different religions; that is why the rain falls to all, the sun shines to all and we all breathe the air freely. We are all created or given life in the very same way- whether Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jew etc. Let us learn to love each other sincerely. The change of heart and mind is possible to achieve if we keep up our

relentless efforts for a violence free and peaceful world. We need to preach love, kindness and humanity with extremist devotion and mission. The mullahs (THE LIARS) and the preachers of HATE must be excommunicated at every level and we should stop giving them donations as it is our money which is being used by them to spread HATRED for

killing of the innocents.
We must also stop dividing the World into Muslim and non-Muslim blocks. Our political leaders and religious teachers must offer positive ideas. Without the ability to imagine a better world, we cannot build anything together. Tolerance of the beliefs of other peoples in the world, warmth and friendship across racial cultures MUST be the objective of all peace loving people worldwide. What is being offered today through religion is “Death, Destruction and Suffering”.

MY PRAYER FOR PEACE:

Merciful God, please give to peoples of the world, the required wisdom and determination, to Forgive and Forget the bitterness of the past and learn to live in peace like brothers and sisters, by condemning the divisions and hatreds created in us by our past and present elders.

(Amen)

2. Israel as a strategic ally is a fallacy and U.S. tax payer’s money is wasted. Israel was not able to help out in the first or the second Gulf War and was not able to help itself in Lebanon. Israel is strongest against the weak, but Hezbollah ate their lunch with chutzpah.

3. The assertion of Israel from the river to the sea is a pipe dream. To expand you need to occupy and subjugate. This is no longer in the realm of reason.

4. This war was inevitable and part of a broader strategy to engage Syria & Iran into a wider war. Hezbollah should not carry the blame for it.

5. Hezbollah should not disarm as Israel will attack unarmed people and break U.N. resolutions at will and with impunity.

6. Hezbollah gave us pride and confidence at the expense of destruction to their homes and their peoples. Yes, parts of Lebanon were devastated but Lebanon will be rebuilt with Arab money and within a short period of time and will endure to be the shiniest democracy in the Arab world.

7. Popular resistance is more effective than traditional armies. Ministers of Defense in the Arab World need to retool: Junk your airforce, tanks, destroyers and submarines and buy some useful hand held antitank and antiaircraft missiles and a lot of rockets. Build intricate tunneling, draw your enemy in, and ravage it.

8. Infantry is your lethal weapon, not the air force, nor the Navy, nor the armored units. Build the Man and turn him into a Knight.

9. Two democracies in the Middle East, Palestine & Lebanon, have been habitually violated. Palestine holds the unique position of being the only occupied democracy in the world; an occupation sanctioned by the U.S. Human Rights abuses in both countries are rife. One wonders how the U.S. can stand up to China and Russia henceforth when it advocates for democracy or preaches on human rights abuses.

10. A policy of conflict resolution worldwide is in the west’s interest, not creative chaos, if there was ever a more stupid term or policy. We have seen what creative chaos engendered in Iraq and Lebanon, to name a few.

11. There will not be a new Middle East. However, we suspect and hope that there will be a new America whose power will be curtailed by other peoples aspirations and where reason, common sense, and a sense of history will prevail.

Conclusion: The U.S. has not been an honest broker. The sooner a tamer Israel wakes up to this fact and closes ranks with its neighbors, the better for them. Arabs and Muslims, who are both chivalrous and merciful, may forgive but will never forget.