I stay in several questionable places while I make myself a weekend warrior, moving about the country. Which us only eight hours tall and 2 hours travel wide. I sleep in the kind of hotel rooms that you pay for by the hour and where small roaches creep up the bathroom walls out cracks in the ceiling and floor. Grunts through paper-thin walls, and bed boards banging like a carnal metronome. Sometimes I’d sleep on Jerusalem Beach under one of the many wooden pergolas built on the sands. Occasionally I’d get offered a couch in a female or gay man’s never-seemed-to-be-air-conditioned apartment. I’d always wake up in my own sweat feeling hungover stinking of cheap vodka when I was lucky with a broad whose name ended with an ‘A.’ Later on, in memories, I just associate Tel Aviv with being out all night. The place I’m at tonight is swinging. This happens when my morals are loose.
The weekend warrior tale had alternative endings. The first was called the missionary. I’d split a bottle of vodka with a client or two and sit on the beach recounting my yarn of exile. We’d palaver on the boardwalk over a twenty-shekel bottle of still water chased with cola or cherry juice about how I came to this place and what was across the sea in that city they all seemed so eager to run toward. That was missionary work. I had worked this tale so many times that it came out like a sermon. My congregants always spent more to purchase a picture after the homily was delivered than they would have before. They’d often give me a number to get fed or get fucked or have a placed to sleep for the night that was not sand or pavement.
Far more often than the missionary came the genie in the bottle. The small peace I had seen through observing Shabbos with the Golder’s Green Jews was drowned in the even greater peace of drinking, fucking, smoking and fighting. I was back to the lifestyle I led prior to my internment in the series of hospitals and the Family School. The rapes and the robberies were gone, but in all other ways it was come-on-in-and-sin. I smoked opium and hash. I drank vodka alone and with my congregation.
My Russian compatriots yearned for New York Americana, and I delivered it. I was a symbol of the city they hoped every night that they might still get to grow up in. So, their girls swallowed my cock and fucked me even when I could not speak a word of their language. Anya spoke a sort of broken half-English. Everything was in the future tense and every sentence included a couple of Russian words, a couple of Hebrew ones and the curse word blat, which means bitch-fuck-shit-cunt. These street Russians use it like a comma.
Anya does not live in Tel Aviv. She lives in Pardes Hanna on the road to Haifa. She is down here on the tiyeled more than I am for her work. She never says what kind of work. One of the many Dimitri’s tells me she is a ‘medical agent.’ These Russians roll deep, like twenty people whose names I’m not expected to keep track of. Mostly they sit on the boardwalk getting drunk all weekend. The Russians post up where I sell across from the Opera Towers so now, I’m part of the gang.
The only time I recall paying for a hotel by the hour was when I banged out Anya in a roach motel with no sheets. We’d drunk so much still water that it was hard to stand. We fucked frantically. I clenched her burgundy, blonde hair as I sucked on her C-plus tits thrust after thrust. The night she attempted to tell me about how Ariel Sharon started the second Intifada, I realized it would be nice to take her to dinner. Or at least have a picnic with a scenic view. Some figs and cheap white wine. Some crackers and some cheese. I don’t really want these girls to think I’m some dark fuck that has no romance in him.
Everyone likes an artist, and I know I am playing a part in all these young girls’ escapist fantasies. I’m that hero in the night who’s gonna whisper it’s all gonna get better one day after I tell them a good story. Never mind my art, it’s all in the epic sincerity of my various yarns. I give these girls something to believe in. I give them some hope that life is like a mission and not just a journey in the darkness. I mean some girls fuck me just because I’m from New York, but I’d like to think that Anya could understand every fourteenth word I say. Then I can be a kid again and do the cute courtship type stuff, write her a poem or something. It washes over me and recedes just as fast. My emotions would be wasted on her. It would add a sense of development to a relationship that has been taken as far as it can or should be.
***
I found a free place to live after three days in Tel Aviv. I was selling art, as I do when money and options run out. A lanky and dark- complexioned Ashkenazi and a jacked-up Russian with spiked hair approached me. Their names were Gilead and the Greek respectively. The Russian kid called the Greek understood more than he could communicate so he let Gilead do the talking. Gilead seemed something of a slimy ass to me. They were both aimless street kids. Gilead told me there was place called Bet Ashanti where I could get three meals and a bed for free just by being homeless and underage. They said it was clean and relatively safe. I was sold.
I accompanied them all the way down past the Dolphinarium and the drummers of the Tiki Beach beyond the Dan Hotel to the crossroads of Tel Aviv and Yaffo into a neighborhood named Florentine. At least the Bet Ashanti was clean. It looked like an urban kibbutz behind the Dan Hotel across from a rundown parking lot. There were twin wooden bunkhouses, and a huge wooden porch cluttered with twenty boys and girls about my age on wooden tables and chairs. The rec room had computers and couches and a pregnant 15-year-old Yemeni. There was something about it that was very Mary Poppins, but it was more like Lord of the Flies. The older battle-axe of a woman who was on duty looked like she had punched a few of these kids out. My new housemates were sizing up what I had to steal even before I put my bag down. Most of them introduced themselves, but I can’t ever catch names when I meet more than ten new people at a time.
It just so happened to be sundown on Friday. We gathered around a huge table in the rec room to eat a Shabbos dinner, light some candles and sing the prayers. There were forty kids in all. The girls had their own apartment up the street. They gave me a locker without a lock and bottom bunk in a large room full of kids that stayed in and out of juvey. Greek told me to hold down anything I had of value. I was one of only two or three Ashkenazim in the lot. They told me not to do any drugs and to come home by midnight. They say I can stay here until I get on my feet.
“As night falls over Beirut, the city takes on a different persona, one marked by the deep haunting echoes of its turbulent past. For beneath the veneer of beauty and new trapping of prosperity lie the scars of decades of war, a reminder of the fragility of peace. The newly built and now mostly empty skyscrapers rise up right next to the bullet pocked derelicts of the civil conflict.”
In the dimly lit alleyways of the city’s forgotten southern neighborhoods, the ghosts of war linger, their presence palpable in the crumbling facades of bombed-out buildings and bullet-riddled walls not yet reclaimed or dragged piece by piece away. Here, amidst the rubble and debris, life struggles to endure, a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. The main southern districts, the so-called Suburbs; are dominated by Hezbollah. They function in an adjacent, but different space and frequency. Yellow flags and posters of bearded clerics demarcate the southern Shi’a zones from the Sunni West and Christian East. The names of these districts are called the Dahieh, or Al Dahiya. They are some of the most densely populated areas of Lebanon.The Dahiya Doctrine is the explicit Israeli military strategy to maximize destruction of civilian infrastructure when at war in Lebanon. Going west to east though Al Dahiya the districts are Jnah, Gobeiry, Bourj el-Barajneh, Haret Hreik, Chiyah, and Hadath.
In the heart of downtown Beirut, once the epicenter of the city’s vibrant nightlife, the scars of war are hidden beneath a veneer of modernity. Here, sleek skyscrapers rise from the ashes of destruction, their glass facades reflecting the glittering lights of luxury boutiques and trendy cafes. But beneath the surface lies a city still grappling with the wounds of its past, a city divided along sectarian lines, where the specter of violence looms large. Here, in the shadows of towering skyscrapers, communities remain fractured and distrustful, their wounds slow to heal.
And yet, amidst the rubble and ruins, there is a glimmer of hope, a belief that Beirut can rise from the ashes and reclaim its rightful place as the Paris of the Middle East. Or at least “the Switzerland”. For despite the scars of war, the spirit of Beirut endures, a beacon of resilience and defiance in a troubled region. The graffiti on all the walls give encouragements; “We are the miracles” some reads. As the night stretches on and the city partially sleeps, the haunting echoes of war fade into the darkness, replaced by the promise of a new dawn. And in the heart of Beirut, amidst the chaos and contradictions, life goes on, a testament to the indomitable spirit of a city that refuses to be defined by its past.
***
ADONAEV
I walk south into Badero navigating toward the high-rise silhouette of the Smallville Hotel. A city block sized blue glass monolith where the good part of town begins to become the working man’s part of town. Wider streets, less abandoned baby skyscrapers. More low-lying brutalist architecture.
Let me tell you about my Comrade Anya Soledad Druze and my old slow burning flame Ms. Yelizaveta Alexandrovna Kotlyarova. These are two fierce, but highly sentimental Slavic women I used to know, as they say. Who are both as it happens, now living in Beirut. Or, they were here just before the 2014 chaos, and they disappeared from plane sight during the Isis War. Remains a mystery to solve how far underground Anya Druze went. Yelizaveta, however, might be a hostage somewhere. Or some leftover stuffed property. Not one hint of sentimentality! Without a hint of sentimentality he must proceed, for the Jew, was not to be distracted by women or ghosts of women. Bashir says both are still in Beirut, so both should be brought into the great game plan, that will soon be revealed with fire.
“That lady can shoot straight and fly a whole ass helicopter,” says Bashir, “go look her up.”
“The Isis War56” was between 2014 and 2018, when everyone, and I mean almost everyone57, put aside their differences to kill every single person in the vile manifestation called “the Islamic State of the Levant and Sham”. Never in recent history had such a grouping come out of nowhere, won battles so miraculously, and then proceeded to make enemies out of just about anyone on earth. Anyone and everyone. Well besides from the Mongols. These were Sunni Mongols; blood thirsty and insatiable. No one on the outside can really grasp the terror they caused. How close they might have been to bringing back the Caliphate.
Now, in 2024, the Isis, called by Arabs Daesh are a threat largely vanquished but in 2014 they credibly threatened to lay siege to both Baghdad and Damascus, and were on the deadly march in every direction. As if fulfilling a Qur’anic prophecy. 40,000 plus foreign Sunni fighters showed up to fight in the Jihad. They seemed unstoppable until everyone united to stop them.
Anya is a Polish convert to Sunni, really Sufi Islam and she rides motorcycles and can pilot a military or civilian helicopter in all weather conditions. She was married to a sniveling Columbian professor type who used to cheat on her all the time, and he neglected both her sexual and spiritual needs. He even, mostly ineffectually, hit her just once which was enough.She broke his faggot nose. She later fled her flailing marriage, quit her municipal job, and ended up with the White Helmets58 during the Syrian Civil War. At least that’s the part of the story she told him about. Had she managed to fight for Rojava I’m sure her whole life would be different. The parts of the war she was in changed her. She was there when Aleppo was barrel bombed and leveled by the regime.
“You can probably find a lead for Anya at the Smallville Hotel,” Bashir had said. So that something drew me to the roof bar of the Smallville Hotel in Badero, but the bar itself is closed tonight. Just looking inside somewhere I think I have been. The night rain batters the glass on the roof deck. Anya is not here.
ADONAEV
This hotel doesn’t seem to have a helipad, but I’ve seen her land on it. I’ve seen a lot of things that might not be real at all. This isn’t my very first rodeo in Beirut, but every trip seems like riding an unbroken horse. Every experience seems fourth dimensional.
Wait, no, hold on. I’ve never been here before. Getting my footing on something very familiar though this time. As if in another life, another reality I’m a virtual Beirut regular.
Anya would not be amused by such fourth dimensional thinking.
Yelizaveta is Eastern Ukrainian, also a part Jew. She did a study abroad at American University Beirut, she got taken hostage, carried off to some badland compound Der Ez Zor, and was possibly gang raped or something even more horrible. Kept in a cold dark cage. At least that’s what Marty had told him. Well, he certainly hoped not, but it was a real possibility out here. That’s probably par for the Isis course, to be honest with any non-Arab, non-Sunni woman laid hands on back then. They were known to slit throats, cut off heads, burn people alive, and take sex slaves. During “the Isis Wars’ ‘, a lot of terrible things happened to mostly innocent people in the name of Allah.
“She is a Marine Biologist by training. She still probably hates me very much for asking her to come teach me out here. What were we teaching them? That is what got her captured anyway. Some part of that is tragedy, some part is the truth.”
I am not drinking tonight, but this is all probably still in my head. Yelizabeth isn’t in Beirut. She was never here or there at all? Or she is out there in the rainy dark ready to shoot me in the head with a rifle. Whose memories are these and how did they come into my head?
CONCIERGE
My sir, the bar is closed.
ADONAEV
My understanding, my “overstanding: from the deck of this hotel roof bar is that she is out there somewhere in the south of the city. Hiding out in a neighborhood called Chiya. This is a lawless impoverished place in the Shi’a-controlled zone. I know she is cunning and has a rifle.
Why do I feel like I have been to this Hotel Bar before? I can’t stand it! Why does everything feel like Deja vu? Looking out the Smallville Hotel roof bar, although it is closed, I blagged my way in as a money-flushed foreigner. As this is an “International Hotel” in Badero, which is in the Christian part, the southmost still mostly Christian district of east Beirut.
The night is cool and raining hard then calmly. I wonder if I’m looking in the right direction, which is South. I smoke a Ceder, indoors of course. The concierge just looks highly impatient. The bar is closed. I wonder if she can shoot me in the heart with her rifle from her vantage point. I imagine the faceless man laughing at me inside. I look into the bright soviet style housing blocks. The bar on top of the Smallville is very well stocked for the NGO workers and diplomatic staff having a day off.
CONCIERGE
My new esteemed friend, the bar is still closed. You must at this time return to your room.
ADONAEV
Yelizaveta is out there! I can feel her putting her rifle on me. Ready to blow my head off or just maim me? She is that good a sniper. That I know. I remember when we came here together for the first time in the 1980s, even though I had never been here before. And we were both born in the 80’s.
“So how could you have been here in the 1980’s,” says Bashir in his head, “you’re not so old.”
Madness is taking hold of a fragile often un-Kosher mind! Why did I rent three separate rooms, at three different hotels? Seems either subversive or just wasteful. He has a room at Biophilia, a Room here, and a room at the Royal Tulip Tower. Are you laying a trap or are you falling into one?No! I have been to this hotel roof bar before; with her. I have seen Anya land a helicopter here. Which is no small thing. Get your head screwed on straight. Says the inner dialogue.
CONCIERGE
My sir, the bar is still very much closed.
Rain beats on the windows. I scan the sky for a chopper that isn’t coming. I look out for a rifle burst that never fires. I see the faceless man laughing at me in silence. Smoking a cigarette and mocking me also in his silence. Hating my presence with all of his very being. Waiting for me to fail miserably and die for nothing. Or step lively and then blow my fucking brains out. Or become something very dangerous in a pop-off blue purple smoke.
Hadas Shimeon Naphtali “drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney” and she, unlike many was born here. My punk rock Persian. Her parents fled persecution in Iran in the 50’s. They settled here in the North. Her English, it gets far worse the more she drinks, and she uses Farsi or Hebrew curses after every fourth word. She is some cross between a goth and a punk, a Persian or Jew depending on what she wants to do after you take her clothes off. This little badass riot girl had gotten me into trouble before. Moaglie a kibbutz brat arse had some long-standing territorial claim on her. I was encroaching.
He was her ex-boyfriend and wanted to beat me senseless when Johnny Yuma informed on me, buddying up to him to get better food and watch HBO with air conditioning. The scum fucker Yuma told him that Hadas was sweet on me. That lip-flapping, eluding bastard sent the jungle boy after me. The little ape threw a brick at my head and chased me with a shovel across the field into the village of Debriyiah. The kid was huge. Some villagers let me hide in their little mosque.
I took this violent outburst of jealousy and its consequences as a sign to move after somebody turned my whole room inside out. One night I threw a brick through the jungle boy’s window and lit off a Molotov cocktail on his porch. ‘Us little bitches are nothing but trouble,’ Hadas told me giggling after the fact.
Bruriya tells me to pack my bags and ‘get gone!’ She refunds a couple hundred sheks from the Ulpan and washes her hands of me. The best way was to keep it internal and banish me before me or the jungle boy tried to kill each other.
I caught the next southbound bus to Tel Aviv. I had not been there since the bombing. I was not cut out for what was left of collective living anyway. I had the phone numbers of my roommate, the wild chesty Hadas and Mr. Jones if I ever needed places to crash.
The mood in Tel Aviv has grown a little bit darker now. But it is just me. The central bus station of Tel Aviv was still a maze of commerce and a madhouse failure in human trafficking. It was Grand Central Station with neither grandeur, elegance nor any discernable organization. It was like the Port Authority with five minutes to live. Increased security and soldiers swarmed the area. ID and random bag checks were done on everyone coming or going. Arab Israelis and Yemenite or Moroccan Jews may as well have never put the identity cards back in their pockets. It was a kind of muted hysteria, not as edgy as being terrorized, but prepared to jump on anyone who looked suspicious. People were colder than normal. Everyone was more jumpy, more likely to curse out strangers and cut lines.
Nothing had really changed except me. Except my perception of what is potentially dangerous. I keep my eyes peeled for bag bombs now and racially profile out my ass. Looking for dark skinned Disney villains. Having never met more than a small handful of Arabs in real life. I take a Sheroort, a mini-van cab, from the bus station to Jerusalem Beach. I always seem to wind up here under the Opera Towers. It seems open and safe.
I drop my black rucksack and set up my art stand from the huge plywood piece near the foot de-sander sprinklers. It air-dried in about five minutes and so did I. The heat was something ridiculous in Celsius. I was soaked through and through. I affixed a large white tablecloth that I had expropriated from the kibbutz to the board and then taped my twenty-some-odd sketches to it. I dropped a handful of new Israeli shekels on my turquoise, bandana-wrapped archive sketchbook. I wedged a sign that some girl had made for me next to it, which said OMANOOT MAQHAR, ‘Resistance Art’ in Hebrew.
With my makeshift art stand up and running, I sat in the shade and counted out my remaining shekels. I have only had 280 left. I had few options for living free or cheap. The most rundown hostels cost 40-plus a night and we’re talking places you would only bring hookers to. I had to get some money and a roof over my head fast.
Squatting isn’t really an option because of the heat and the junkies. There was not really a squatter movement here in Israel, that is, unless you counted the several million Palestinians as a kind of squatter community, squatting their own homes now deemed illegal. The irony of this was not lost upon me. Only junkies in bombed out shit holes did not pay rent. They were constantly evicted. I didn’t want to live in that kind of situation.
The boardwalk is empty because of the evil heat. A small girl came up to me with her mother and then ran off quickly. They only buy my sketches at night when they’re drunk. On a Thursday or a Friday, it would get busy, and I could do okay. Or at least that was what it was like when I was coming down just for weekends. They can’t seem to get an American selling political art here. They also really can’t get their heads around a New Yorker immigrating here. They spend more time trying to talk me out of moving to Israel than buying art. Only girls and tourists buy anything for more than ten NIS. They buy what hangs on the board sometimes quite inspired by one of my scribbles. I don’t put the time into these things that I did in London. A lot of them are photocopies of my archive colored in with pencils and sharpies.
No wonder they thought I was crazy. Whatever AIPAC and the big US Jew lobby was doing, it worked, all the propaganda had worked. Israel is the single largest recipient of US aid on the planet. What it offers in intelligence or about anything seemed too negligible for the number of US dollars it receives each year. These are the subjects of lofty and opinionated books, but Israel seemed more like an outpost than a colony. Its claims toward both democracy and Westernness were highly exaggerated. Things were neither particularly Western nor Democratic in the Holy Land.
Arab rhetoricians liked to compare the ‘Zionist entity’ to the crusader state during the Middle Ages. That was weak, too. Except maybe that’s how it looks to everyone except us. Israel was clearly quite capable of fighting off joint amalgamations of Arab armies prior to the serious military aid that didn’t get started in earnest until after the war in 1956. The massive evangelical Christian support for Israel was geared to their Bible book of Revelations, based upon wishful thinking that the Jewish return would precede the end of days. The Evangelicals were thrilled about us coming home. The sooner we all returned home and were slaughtered, the sooner Jesus would return.
This little outpost of 8 million people was also like a large open-air ghetto in the sands. And inside our ghetto wed built Palestinians a few smaller ones. This outpost oasis would always be armed, walled and holding out for reinforcements, which were never coming. The hundreds of millions of dollars in gun money and the immigrant waves of several thousand a year couldn’t outgun or out breed the Palestinian will for their nation to be liberated. We’d built our ghetto on top of someone else’s land. No matter how we justify it, that is how they see it. If it had been ours some thousands of years ago, that didn’t matter on the Arab or Muslim Street. They weren’t going anywhere, and neither were we.
That an American artist would come here to draw was neither logical nor in line with the Israelite Dream. You did your army time and then moved on to New York via Bali or Europe if your finances allowed.If you got to America, you didn’t come back unless you came back rich. The Russians were just biding time. Their Zionist yearnings were in an entirely different language. If things had been shit for Jews in Russia, they were shit here too. Only Brighton Beach was paved in gold. For the Israeli kids it was in Williamsburg or DUMBO where these golden streets were to be found. They all just wanted out of here. They felt the walls beginning to chip.
Draft dodging was not just on the rise; it was a supported subculture. These Refuseniks, as they were called, claimed insanity, or pacifism, or whatever they could. Most went to prison or fled the country. The ones who stayed were ruined. Doors were closed to them not only for vital state monies for healthcare and school, but also for thousands of upper middle-class jobs. You were marked as a traitor if you didn’t join the IDF because the whole outpost relied on the strength and violence of its young to hold the fort.
The religious, or Dosiim as they were called derogatorily by my Russian friends, were exempt from the army and taxes too. Their role was to keep the ‘Jewish character’ of the state together. Maintain actual Jewish identity. They voted as a block and their SHAS party was always needed for any government coalition. This created a tremendous amount of religious baggage that was foisted upon the secular Jewish state. It impacted nearly every aspect of Israeli life. You couldn’t get married if you weren’t Jewish. You had to fly to Cyprus to consummate a marriage that was not halachically approved.
Things are locked down on Shabbos. Not everything, but about everything outside of Tel Aviv. Russians and Arabs ran their stores and clubs, but the national bus and train lines went down for 24 hours. You could not find too many restaurants with pepperoni pizza. Technically you couldn’t have pigs on the territory of Israel, but Russians got around it with elevated sties. There were ways around everything, but the real result was divisions that had been growing in Israel since the mass waves of Sephardic Jews began showing up in the 50’s fleeing pogroms in Arab countries after the first two wars had gone so badly.
The Mizrahim, as they were derogatively called by the Ashkenazim, the white European Israelis, looked like Arabs, spoke and thought in Arabic, ate foods like Arabs and to an outsider were indistinguishable culturally from Arabs. The Jews and Muslims had done well enough together for about 1600 years, far better than Jews had done living in Christian Europe. Their status as a “People of the Book” had protected them under theIslamic Shari’ah Law for hundreds of years. There was intermarriage as well as vast cultural exchange as Jews had been integrated throughout the Caliphates. This ended quite abruptly in 1948. Beat enough war drums and shed enough blood and now less than fifty years later, the Jews and Muslims will swear they have been enemies since creation.
The Mizrahim demographically are quite diverse, but the largest contingents are the Jews from Yemen and Morocco. For decades the racial and cultural tensions drove the first schisms within the Jewish state. The constant state of war, however, never allowed these differences to be politically dangerous. There had been a Black Panther Party of Israel in the 1970’s, which fought discrimination. Eventually they were arrested or co-opted or forgotten about or ignored. When there’s a war every ten years and the survival of the state always seems to hang in the balance, these internal contradictions are swept under the great wool rug. Then came huge waves of Ethiopian Jews in the 70’s and there was a new other, one more racially pronounced and completely unaccustomed to living in a quasi-developed, industrial country. But better to be a nigger in the outpost than a nigger in a war zone. Ethiopia went up in the flames of civil war and the 20,000 odd Ethiopian Jews were lifted out and naturalized in Israel. They belonged to two great African tribes that had been practicing Judaism for over 2,000 years and were widely believed to be the lost tribe of Dan. My Russian friends called them the Cosiim, which meant Blacks, but might as well have meant niggers. The Russians seemed to never play nice with Ethiopians. There were fights in the ghettos, fights in the schools, fights in the army, and fights in the clubs. I almost got the shit kicked out of me in front of Abulafiah trying to break up a Russian Ethiopian fisticuff right after I first arrived.
The Russian flood began in 1989 when the wall came down and surged by the early nineties. Any Russian with even the flimsiest claim to being the grandchild of a Jew came in swarms. All over the former Soviet Union as former party and KGB operators grabbed up turf, men and weapons, the fall of communism meant a mass exodus of a million so-called Russian Jews to Israel. Fleeing poverty, repression and anarchy, these Russians were called Barbarians by just about every other marginalized group as they packed ghettos all over the outpost to capacity right next to Sephardic, Ethiopian, and lower-class Ashkenazi groups like the Romanians. The adjustment to this new immigration was still underway. My closest friends here, like the now exploded and dead Roman, were the children of this new wave. They spoke English better than they spoke Hebrew because they tuned into MTV and VH1 everyday having grown up cold-war, capitalist-culture deprived.
There was another especially important demographic in our outpost. They were harder to count because they had so many kids they didn’t always report. They had their own ways and were as insular as they could be. A TagliitBirth Right Israel guide would call them the Arab Israelis; but that was a fiction for tourists not attuned to demographics or statecraft. There are easily a million Arab Israelis or Palestinians living in Israel proper. They are the ones who never left. Some of them were Christians, like the inhabitants of the town of Nazareth and Acho. Many were not. No one wanted to call them Palestinians, but that’s what they called themselves. I had met a few on the tiyeled. They went out in packs because it was safer that way. They didn’t have to join the army, but they benefited by staying. They were hated by everyone else and suspected as a fifth column in this latest Intifada.
There were two more subgroups of the so-called “Arab Israelis” with whom I had no contact: the Druze and the Bedui. You had to count them separately because even though they were Arab they had always sided with the Israeli state despite any silly claims at ethnic loyalties. The Bedouin were Sunni Muslim like the Palestinians, but their nomadic desert nature put them quite at odds with every Arab regime in the region. They were concentrated largely in settlements all over the Negev and periodically joined the army as trackers. They were very poor and were also well integrated into southern crime and smuggling out of Egypt. I hoped to meet one eventually. I’d never been south of Judea. The Druze were more ambiguous still because they practiced a highly secretive religion something like Hinduism and Islam mixed. They lived in little village citadels in the north in Lebanon and the Galilee. They were active supporters of the Jewish state, and many sent their children to the IDF. I was told that even if I did meet a Druze, they’d never tell me anything about their religion. They kept to the hills and to their own ways clandestino.
So, our little outpost of 8-9 million souls, 11-12 if one counted Palestinians in the territories, had quite enough internal fighting simmering to add to the twenty-plus nations in the region that continued to swear to kill us, not to mention the two million Palestinians in the occupied territories. There were internal contradictions of the inner city and the ghettos. I saw them clearly on the tiyeled. I drew pictures about them and about the need for unity even with the Palestinians at war with us. It was becoming obvious to me that this internal fighting would do in our outpost far sooner than some Arab army could. All this building hatred was exploding around us three or four times a week. A bus here, a bar there. Sometimes it was just a child with a Kalashnikov opening up on people in a market. The suicide bombing campaign was low intensity and high volume. There were never more than twenty fatalities per attack, but it was taking its toll. The Israelis would strike back with ‘smart bombs’ and checkpoints and road closures, but it stopped nothing. This thing was just getting started.
Anya is the blondinette-streaked, raven-haired Russian really part Jewish Khazaki girl that I am fooling around with from the town of Pardes Hana. She tells me that it all started when Ariel Sharon and a huge armed escort made their way to the Temple Mount where the Dome of the Rock sits and demanded access to pray. A violent and terrifying fitna erupted within twenty minutes of the Prime Minister’s initial visit. It was this that had started the first Intifada. It must have begun less than a month since I first visited in 2000. Now, nine months later, the body count was in the thousands with daily retaliations. It was the bomber belt versus the F-15 fighter with their laser-guided rocket smart bombs that always knocked out the terrorists and nine families living near them. It was blood for blood and bullet for bullet, a test of wills as to who possessed the constitution hold the outpost.
I was working late on a Thursday when I saw something unusually gangster. Two carloads of Palestinians were careening down the highway that runs alongside the tiyeled at over 70 mph. They were each waving four huge red flags with the crescent of Islam upon them. Thirty Israeli police cars were pursuing them with sirens wailing. It was a high-speed chase over what might have just been a first amendment question at a high speed but was getting blown up into something more significant. It was indeed quite gangster so see these Arab bandits tearing down the highway repping their colors. They’d be very lucky if the Israelis didn’t open fire on them. I hoped to not see the end of it. It was brave, noble, more of a statement than exploding yourself in a club full of uninvolved high school kids. But that was naïve. Everyone was involved.
One of the Israeli squad cars pulled off a pit maneuver on the rear vehicle and it spun out of control into a concrete barrier and flipped. The lead car took off out of site heading south toward the Dan Hotel and District Yaffo. A crowd gathered around the vehicle and the police took positions with their pistols drawn. Some fat American tourists with handheld video cameras turned their attention from the three-card Monte stands to ‘the terrorists.’ A group of Russian youth swarmed the site, but not too close in case the people in the overturned car ‘exploded’ themselves.
A young Arab man crawled out one of the broken windows. He dragged his buddy with him. The police started screaming in Hebrew for him to put his arms in the air. A policeman fired in the air. I think you only fire in the air in third world countries. The young Arab rebel’s hands and shirt were all bloodied up. He hadn’t let go of that flag.
There were two more guys in the back who were pretty fucked up because they hadn’t been wearing seat belts. The paramedics arrived on the scene as well as a few more cop cars. A loudspeaker was telling everyone in Hebrew and English to get back in case the car was booby-trapped. Maybe it was because the fat Americans were filming. Maybe it was because he hated the sound of Hebrew. Maybe it was because English is the Modern Greek, the bloodied Arab rebel bellows:
“Khaybar, Khaybar, ya yahud! Jaish Mohammed soufa ya-oud!!”
He did not bellow it exceedingly long. Some of the gawking Russian kids overran the security cordon and started kicking his face in. They tore him and his friend in the front seat apart.
The police beat the Russians back with riot sticks and pepper spray. Peace was eventually restored. Four young Arabs were in cuffs. Only one of them was conscious. The police called some ambulances for the four kids who could not really have been said to have been doing much more than speeding with the pride of the nation.
Raqqa City, ISIS Controlled Territory, former Syria, 2016 ce
Thus recounts the highly devout and sometimes decapitation look away prone mujahadeen Abdullah Shamil Abu-Idris. One of the over 45,000 Sunni Muslim volunteers to arrive in support of the Islamic State.
ABU IDRIS
“There is a protracted siege now well underway of this Syrian Bunker Citadel, that historically changed hands many times; and it was clearly not going to end well. Not for the attackers, the defenders, or the 200,000 plus people trapped standing in between.”
Not every single so-called ‘Daesh’ is an intimately, innately miserable, and evil person. Some are also Turkish spies, the mentally ill, or rapists. Some are on drugs; some are sadists and people with identity crises. Some just wanted to fuck concubines. Or impose themselves upon others. For many of the ten million people who found themselves within the ISIS zone of control, an area around the size of Great Britain. It was the lesser of many evils. That is why in virtually every city that initially encountered ISIS with all but a few exceptions, there was no resistance at all.
The City of Raqqa at the height of the S.D.F. Offensive had around half a million people living in it and under it. Raqqah was re-developed by the Assad regime as one enormous bunker complex, a fallback base for the regime if Damascus fell. Which it nearly did. The capture of either Baghdad or Damascus, historic centers of Islam would have triggered in the global Muslim community a surge of foreign fighters. It would have subconsciously triggered a mighty influx of support.
“G-d is Great!”, but his actions are often in-understandable! Everywhere on earth the Ummah53 was trampled, suffering, crying out for the righteous to stand up to these Crusaders, these Shiite Apostates and their Zionist allies. That is what the Baghdadi Caliphate was set up to achieve. The defeat of the Kafirs and the glorious triumph of Sunni Islam. Real Islam, not the Islam of reformers, collaborationists, idolaters, and innovationists. Embracers of Shirk. The inevitable return of the Mahdi our redeemer. But, things have again completely fallen apart. We’re barely holding on now, surrounded by a united cohort of enemies.” As explained by the Jihadi Abdullah Abu-Idris a Syrian Arab from Medayiin captured and interrogated during the gruesome 9-month battle for Raqqah City.
“At the height of the Caliphate following the death of the Prophet Mohammed, Abu as Salem, in 200 years our Ummah stretched from Spain to Indonesia, from the Balkans down to Africa. The Caliphate of Baghdadi, well it was allegedly the size of Great Britain, had some 12 million subjects and stretched from just west of Baghdad to just east of Damascus. The largest city, currently completely under siege was Mosul and the administrative capital also completely now surrounded by Kurdish hordes is Ar Raqqah.”
There are barren beige rocky, earth dunes in every direction. Alongside the Euphrates River it is lush and periodically scenic, but less than three kilometers out; dust and despair. Ramadan has begun, but the infidels bombard us day and night. We are in full retreat on all sides.
It is so hot, but of course I remember to make my prayers and keep my faith, because I am a Muslim. I submit only to Allah, and I know the road I am on will lead me to paradise either in this world should we be victorious, or in the next should we fall as Martyrs.
There remains a deep vacuum in the depiction of the war to explain the motivation of the 40,000-50,000 estimated Muslim volunteers who crossed the world, infiltrated Iraq & Syria, to defend the radical Caliphate led by Baghdadi. Humanizing these people is essential to making any basic arguments that ISIS had real grievances and framed reality in a way that spoke and speaks to a whole generation of Muslims. However, as complex the span of motives might have been, but 2017 most of them were dead and the coalition had encircled both Mosul and Raqqa City their dual capitals. If a Mahdi was coming, he was extremely late in the game. As rapidly as “the Caliphate” had risen and marched in every direction, its forces were now obliterated. Of course, it was this hardcore of foreign fighters that held out the longest, with their families, with nowhere to run or hide.
My name is Abdullah Shamil Abu-Idris, or ‘Shamil Basayev’ as my name of the war. I’m named after a famous Chechen Mujahideen, freedom fighter killed in the liberation and resistance wars that happened in the Caucuses between 1994 and 2004. He was killed in an airstrike to his phone in 2006. I am Syrian, but to us Shamil is a real Muslim hero. He took on the Russians after all, the same barbarians we fight now on our southwestern front. Well anyway, the Russians eventually martyred Shamel. Allegedly also they killed 1 in 7 Chechens and raped 1 in 3 of all Chechen women. Which perhaps is why such a large contingent of foreign mujaheddin as Chechens.
Now, we fight the Russians and Hezbollah from the South and the Kurds from the North. In Mosul the Shiites surround us. The American airstrikes have completely tilted the battlefield against us.
There are not that many of us left. Perhaps 5,000 fighters, in the beginning it seemed we were sanctified and invisible, mujahedeen arriving from around the world. There is a distinctive dread of impending defeat. The Kafirs54have bombed all out cities and given weapons to the Kurds and Shi’ites who are our resolute enemies.
“I never got much enthusiasm from a public beheading.” I’m a good Muslim, so I never got down on the excesses happening under the mantle of the Caliphate. I came with my wife and two children from Chechnya. Clearly the Ummah is under attack in every corner of the globe and the Caliphate here was such an obvious form of resistance. The endless be-headings, gruesome public burnings and sex slaves were a little much for me. Over tea, some of us would go so far as to say it was the actual undoing of the entire Islamic State project this very well publicized brutality. Throwing homosexuals off the roof tops, well everyone had a chuckle about it, but really we should not have televised all that stuff.
Now, Mosul and Raqqa are completely besieged and we’re all going to fight to the death. Raqqah City was rather beautiful once. The Caliphate was nothing like all the slaughter and terrorism on the media, though we made that media, and we made that terrorism. What people will never understand, the Kafrs I mean, is that we all actually want a caliphate. We want women protected in the home. We want non-believers regulated paying the Demi tax55. We want alcohol and cigarettes banned. We want mandatory prayer five times a day. It’s Islamic to want these things. The Kurds are all secular communists, so we killed them. The Shi’a are treacherous hypocrites, so we killed them. The Yazidis are devil worshipers, so we massacred them in Sinjar and made their women sex slaves. I didn’t do any of that. I arrived in 2016. It was beginning to crumble apart, but I had faith in the Caliphate. Well of course I still do have faith that the will of Allah is highly complicated, and this grand set back is all part of a larger clash, a cosmic war. Of course, Islam will triumph in the end, because that is what the prophet declared. But, for now, things look bleak.
“I mean, how many generations of Muslims must fall to these crusaders before we restore the true religion of Islam? This is about resistance to the genocide of Muslims. Albeit strange that the leaders live in mansions and drive sports cars. Strange that none of the Imams are very learned. Strange that Turkish and Saudi money is all over the place in rumors, but all the ISIS leaders met in an American prison.”
Frankly, life here is not a lot better or a lot worse that in fascist Russia. I would say that for my family all things are comparable, or were until Raqqah was besieged. Now, I suppose we will all die here at the murderous hands of Kurdish communist armies.
I think it is good to die for Islam, but maybe for the sake of my family we will try and get through the lines and cross down the river to Al-Mayadeen. The last stand against the invading Kurdish army will be in the Deir-Ez-Zor Province, deep in the desert along the Euphrates River valley.
The Western Media dehumanizes Muslims and makes us look fanatical, but after our people are massacred in every single nation on earth and the West declares explicit war on our religion, what exactly is the moderate position? There isn’t one.
I was young when the towers came down, but it was appropriate. The C.I.A. and its Zionist allies have toppled the governments of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. They are remaking the Middle East for the good of Israel and oil corporations. The fact that their alliance against is one of Shiites and Kurds speaks to how they will stop at nothing, arm anyone to destroy Islamic law and governance. The great hypocrites are the Saudis for while they secretly send us money and clerics, they live off the glut of American petroleum trade.
This project, the Caliphate had contradictions of course. But it was popular to many and most under its rule. Sunnis welcomed a protecting force with so much instability in Syria and Iraq. Iraq has fallen to the Persian Kafirs who fight us with Iranian help in Mosul. We are better warriors than the Shi’a or Kurds, but we don’t have air power. This is why we are now losing the war town by town, street by street. I will likely not get out of Raqqah, but I will fight and die with the brothers for the Islamic State. I know that at least for me and my Muslim brothers, this is very historical and important. 40,000 of us came to support this, thus it is not the cult of Baghdadi or extremism. It is legitimate and essential to Sunni that this survives, whatever the odds.
I am of course willing to battle the Kafirs to protect true Islam! That is in the Qur’an. That is what Jihad is. War is terrible, the war in Syria is very awful. But we didn’t start the war. The war is a product of the big game between Russia and America. Everyone is clear on that. The Shiites side with Russia because of oil interests and politics. The Kurds side with America, because everyone hates their seditious plans.
Look, I am not so violent! I’m not so radical. I am against the sex slaves, the fast cars, and big houses of the leadership. I would like to sometimes have a drink or two, sometimes. I had bacon in Russia, it was very tasty. You will never understand why this was important to us, but it was very important to us. For my generation it was almost cataclysmic. As if the Prophet himself might show up any day now.
But in the end, he did not. And the coalition airstrikes took their bloody toll. Though I will meet a martyr’s death out here, I must say that the Caliphate and the rise of ISIS was enthralling to all the billion or more believers. Everywhere on earth Muslims are being massacred. Everywhere we are impoverished and abused. If like others I had sat this all out and watched, it on a TV screen I would not have lived up to my own beliefs about Allah and my faith and my religion.
Later, they beat me badly for many days. Then eventually I was executed in a ditch. I cannot really confirm or deny that there were any virgins where I went because I do not want to upset any of the tens of thousands of Islamic martyrs who resisted the Kurdish infidels, Shiite apostates, and Western Crusader forces. But when I died, I was just dead, with no bells, whistles, virgins, or rivers of milk, or of red wine. The only virgins were the Kurdish and Yazidi girls they all abused. And death came to most of us ether from the American planes above, or the pickup trucks of light infantry fighting under the banner of Abdullah Ocalan.
BEIRUT, RAFIC HARIRI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, 2023 ce
***
Nestled along the azure shores of the Mediterranean Sea, Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport stands as a bustling hub of activity, welcoming travelers from around the globe to the vibrant city of Beirut and the enchanting landscapes of Lebanon.
It is named after the popular Sunni President the Syrians allegedly murdered. It is usually one of the very first things to be blown apart in an Israeli invasion. That’s has not happened since 2006 but has happened enough times to make it predictable. Why there isn’t more international outcry, oh wait there is, and the United States ignores it. Although Israel is capable of some independent foreign policy prerogatives; telling is the concept of the 5 Eyes + I; the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Canada sharing signals intelligence in collaboration with Israel. Is Israel a Jewish Military Colony of the United States? Are its interests ever separate from its major donor? Most assume not. The correct analysis is hard to make. Are Jews such a useful part of America, they get such influence as to prop up their colony? Or is it much more complicated; where the worth of the colony is that of outlying multi-ethnic Middle East intelligence base? What they do with their Palestinians is far more humane than what Lebanon does with theirs. As you approach the airport, the gleaming terminal buildings rise from the coastal plain like modern-day palaces, their sleek glass facades reflecting the brilliance of the departing sun. Palm trees sway gently in the breeze, adding a touch of tropical elegance to the bustling scene.
Inside the terminal, a symphony of sounds and sights unfolds, as travelers from all walks of life converge upon this crossroads of the Middle East. The air is alive with the hum of conversation in a myriad of languages, mingling with the clatter of luggage wheels and the chime of departure announcements. At this moment, the traffic is youth home for the holidays. Thousands studying in Europe and America defying the travel warnings out of familial love and patriotism. Dropping into English but mostly using French to talk about Bourgeoise nothing. But that is subjective.
Passengers move with purpose through the cavernous halls, their eyes alight with the excitement of adventure and rediscovery. Families bid tearful hellos to loved ones, while a small cadre of business travelers rush to catch their next flight, briefcases in hand. Yet amidst the hustle and bustle, there is a sense of warmth and hospitality that permeates the air. Airport staff greet travelers with genuine smiles and friendly welcomes, offering assistance and guidance to ensure a smooth journey. And an even smoother welcome home. The background noise; that no airline is flying into the country besides national carrier Middle East Airways. The background noise, like Israel might invade soon. It’s all kept in the background behind a terrific enthusiasm to be back in Lebanon.
As you make your way through the terminal, you cannot help but be captivated by the diverse array of shops and restaurants that line the concourses. From high-end boutiques displaying the latest in fashion and luxury goods to cozy cafes serving up fragrant Lebanese coffee and delectable pastries, there is something for everyone to enjoy. But the most enchanting aspect of Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport is its panoramic views of the Mediterranean Sea. As you gaze out through the expansive windows, you are treated to breathtaking vistas of sparkling blue waters stretching out to the horizon, dotted with sailboats and fishing vessels.
As the sun sets over the sea, casting a golden glow over the terminal, you can’t help but feel a sense of awe and wonder at the beauty of this magical place. And as you board your flight, bidding farewell to Paris and London, you carry with you memories of a country that is not just a gateway to the Middle East, but a destination in its own right—a place where the spirit of hospitality and the allure of adventure come together to create an unforgettable experience. And in the background the disconnection that is four hours south is the front.
***
The Middle East Airways carrier touches down in Beirut around 8 pm.The airport is like a vast illuminated shopping mall; everything is shiny and new. It doesn’t take me more than half an hour to get through customs, collect my only other bag, and try to find Ali who is holding my name on a sign. There he is. Well, that was all really easy. This airport is almost empty.
Ali the Shiite driver picked up the Jew from the airport and brought him to the Biophilia Lofts, which were not exactly the most bang for one’s buck possible in Beirut. A City well known for hundreds of glamorous hotels; this was not that. Ali gives him a Ceder cigarette and declares “we will be friends forever!”
There’s something in the air.
That something is called a dread.
“Nestled within the bustling metropolis of Achrafieh, East Beirut, amidst the concrete jungle and bustling streets, lies a hidden gem: Biophilia Lofts. Here, amidst the chaos of city life, a sanctuary of serenity awaits, where nature and urban living converge in perfect harmony.” That is what the internet description says.
We take the M 51 Freeway North cutting through the Shiite South of the City. As you approach these Biophilia Lofts, you are greeted by a striking facade, adorned with living greenery cascading down the sides of the building like a verdant waterfall. The air is alive with the sounds of birdsong and the gentle rustle of leaves, a stark contrast to the cacophony of the city beyond, downhill, moving back to the West. “Step inside, and you are transported into a world of natural beauty and modern elegance. The interior spaces are bathed in soft, natural light, filtering in through floor-to-ceiling windows that offer panoramic views of the city skyline and the shimmering waters of the Mediterranean Sea beyond.” Absolutely none of that is true. “Each loft is a masterpiece of design, blending sleek, contemporary architecture with elements of biophilic design. Living green walls breathe life into the space, while natural materials such as wood and stone create a sense of warmth and tranquility.” If they say so.
“But it is not just the aesthetics that set Biophilia Lofts apart; it is the ethos that underpins every aspect of the development. Here, sustainability is not just a buzzword; it is a way of life. Solar panels line the rooftop, providing clean, renewable energy to power the building, while rainwater harvesting systems ensure that every drop is put to effective use.” But the most unique feature of Biophilia Lofts is its rooftop garden oasis. Here, residents can escape the hustle and bustle of the city below and reconnect with nature in a lush, green paradise. Stroll along winding pathways lined with native plants and flowers or unwind in a shaded alcove beneath the canopy of a towering tree. Bathe in the moonlight! As the sun sets over Beirut and the West city lights begin to twinkle in the distance, first a fast highway, then parkways up hills. “There is a sense of peace and tranquility that washes over Biophilia Lofts. Here, amidst the chaos of urban life, residents find solace in the embrace of nature, and a new way of living takes root—one that is in harmony with the world around us.”
Ali does not say very much. I ride shotgun, we smoke some Cedar dark blues and listen to Fayrouz on the radio, how pleasant. “We are now friends for life,” he tells me!
***
The hotel is a series of still being renovated lofts in an old warehouse. It is like renting a very small studio for $250 a night and it came with absolutely nothing except a lot of privacy and some boutique soap. There is no concierge or any security. You can just walk inside and walk upstairs. The elevator at least had a pass card. But the stairs certainly did not. And how much privacy anyway does your money buy in a place like this? There is no actual address on the building. It’s a warehouse-looking building on the corner of Alexander Pharmacy near the Spinney Supermarket. No actual building number, no door man, no locking front door. No door on the front door really. It honestly was like someone created bohemian loft studios in a broken-down old warehouse, that’s supposedly in the “good part of town”. Achrafieh is the highpoint of the city in East Beirut. Had he not paid $875 up front moving the whole show over to the Smallville seemed totally logical. This place didn’t come with any fucking thing besides whispering Ferns hanging above the bed. Was this a slip away to fuck, or did he just have to worst room in the whole place? No, it was a place to slip away for sure. The room isn’t bad at all. It’s clean, the door locks, the bed is comfortable, what more does one need?
“Well, it’s the highpoint of the city! Christian Achrafieh! There’s holiday energy in the air, in the distance one can hear what is Christmas caroling in French.”
There is another Ali, the night manager; spindly aged by war, he helps me with my bag. He sizes up the Jew. There is a general manager named Jennyfer who lives down the hall, aloof and slightly bizarre in her movements. Maybe he makes them all nervous. He barely sees her face for 1 minute during check in. So much for the allegedly famous Lebanese hospitality thus so far.
“Tonight, you’re the only guest in the hotel,” Miss Jennyfer tells him, “But tomorrow we have a totally full house! Welcome to Beirut.”
The safehouse has one elevator you need a key to operate, the doors are clunky, and the Jew must take a few practice runs to get the key in. There’s a light skinned African maid, maybe Eritrean. The room is clean and upscale, it has “biophilia-like elements”. The Ferns really do whisper at you all night. What are they trying to say? They say, “move your ass over to Smallville or Royal Tulip!” This place has weird voodoo.”
Jennyfer mentions something about payment later in the week because she doesn’t have the cashpoint machine which reads foreign credit cards. She doesn’t look him in the eyes. She might be a pretty and a partly bleached blonde, but the interaction doesn’t go on that long to form any real opinions. It happens so fast Sebastian would be unable to say what she did or didn’t come across like. And it doesn’t matter if he’s paying for the room not the adjacent experiences.
I unpack. Another Ali, a third one, shows him how to smoke out the hotel window. Opens it up for him. This Ali also has war or prison tattoos on his arms including the Zulfaqar split sword of the Shi’a.
I can see right into his neighbors’ apartments across the street when he pulls away the black out curtain. Nothing about the Christian quarter looks very modern besides the supermarket. The supermarket Spinneys looks just like a Western supermarket. The rest of it, on first impression looks like a Christian foot hold, dare he use the word “Ghetto”. I pass out on the big, comfortable king-sized bed. I see I have a missed call from Bashir and another from his Vice President Yaelle D’Arrigo. But sleep is the cousin of rest, or death. In my dreams, I fuck her to the beat of fireworks going off. In real life, I would never dare to even ask her on a date.
***
ADONAEV
I wake up in Biophilia lofts on the fourth floor to the rustling of the Ferns directly above me. This place is neither particularly bohemian nor truly fancy. But I am paying 4 stars to sleep here. $250 a night is hardly a deal. You can stay at most hotels in East Beirut for $100. The Muslim West Beirut, Ras Beirut a lot less in general, except that is where all the really 5 star looking hotels seem to be. But he is not here to fuck around this time.
The Ferns are whispering that I could have selected a far better safe house. The Ferns never lie. Marty would be upset by the whole damn thing. Marty would be telling me I really am about to blow my foot off on this little undertaking. Or get forced disappeared. Marty never likes his travel plans. Never approves of anything that involves any level of trusting an Arab with anything. He’d disapproved of the Syria job in 2017, barely made it out alive on that, and he disapproved of this even more.
“In Syria at least you knew who your enemies were.” Knew every other pothole was a mine. At least there you kept your dick in your pants, and didn’t walk anywhere you hadn’t seen another man walk. Beirut is different. She will lure you in and take you alive.’
October 7th had made all the Jews a little fucking crazy, perhaps more blood thirsty than we ever usually are. The State of Israel has one real mandate, and that mandate isn’t really a “Jewish State”; it’s a state that can protect Jews and the ball was dropped. Like it had never been dropped before.
I have a text message from Yaelle, my “Vice President in New York”. She is saying something about “Night of the North ”; an event they’re all going to be speaking at; an ambulance driver unity type club night. Being organized by Lt. David Cook, who may or may not mean us well. Who may or may not have his own agenda for helping us out. But everything about New York Grad has melted away and all that is left; the goal of the mission; the objectives for being here. Moving cautiously step by step. With no back up really to speak of.
“Absolutely no one is coming to get you if they don’t even know where you are,” Yaelle had told him, “Please keep your geotracker on all the time.” But it doesn’t work anywhere and there isn’t Wi-Fi.
I wonder how many weeks it will take for them to implode the whole otriad in my absence. I trust that Yaelle is a tough cookie, and some people helping her are smart. Like my girlfriend Karessa Abe, “the General Secretary”. But I don’t think I really trust “my Treasurer” Big Mike Combs or know why Lt. Cook is really helping us. I think everyone in the ambulance service is bit of a snake. Individualistic; primarily tribal. Unable to play well with others for long periods of time. Whether fighting amongst themselves counts, the group is held together with duct tape. Big Mike Combs hasn’t done one useful or helpful thing in a year and he’s right under Yaelle in the chain of command. More than a year! And others in leadership are the same. Just plain doing nothing without my special brand of leadership pushing, dragging them all along. Dragging us forward. And they often resent me for it. Yet la lucha goes on. Just barely it goes on. I decided to take this “job” because I have come to care very little about my life in New York Grad. I have decided to take this “job” because I would, and can, lay down my life for change. That makes me a zealot, not an operator. It makes me of course not a tourist. It changes one’s perspective on acceptable risks. You might just say you move completely differently and take far more risks. In that you don’t perceive them, or think you are immune from them. Or think you will come back.
“You’re a local! You are a natural! If you die, you’ll come right back.”
Now lest you just think the Jew of Beirut is a total mad man, who talks to ghosts, talks to the moon, and talks to possibly dead ex; the Ferns don’t talk as much as hum, and a whole array of dangling Ferns do hang above the bed. It’s part of the so-called “Biophilia Motif”. To put you in touch with nature. The architecture or design that connects you with nature or other living things. I should move my ass to a real hotel over on the Muslim side, thinks the Jew; his handlers all have biases he doesn’t share. Marty hates Iranians and doesn’t trust Arabs. Souheil doesn’t trust Muslims of any stripe. Bashir doesn’t trust Shiites. Marcy trusts everyone in her own naive hippy way. Yaelle doesn’t know a Sunni from a Shiite, doesn’t know the plan. Not even one letter of the plan. What would little Karessa Abe say, “You told me Shi’a are the good guys!”
I look around the room and see a big glass shower box and a very small TV. An empty mini bar. No ice. Huge black out curtain windows. How did I get here? Why am I doing this again? This is such a bad idea to be flying so far out with no back up. How did I end up thinking this was a good safe house and not just rent out a hotel and hope for the best.
ADONAEV
“But you are going to rent hotels, two more to be precise. With each Lira you spend and each place you show face; you are doing your little part.”
“No one cares about your comings and goings here.” The whole city sits in a daze between paralysis and endless party time. No one is expecting you or looking for you. You’re just a tourist, maybe the only tourist here. You are a ghost.
I’m very-very jet-lagged. That is for sure. I remember not sleeping very well in the Paris safe house, so called safe house, in the gray. Staying up too late talking to that young anarchist Luka about things that don’t really matter in Rojava. He’s at an age where he wants to go fight for the revolution somewhere. He’s getting arrested in Parisian Street demonstrations. He probably has to go see the revolution and sit around waiting to kill people before they kill you. Council communism in languages you really don’t speak. He probably has to learn that a revolution is bloody, not magic, not transformative. He must see the light go out from some one’s eyes, choking them to death. With his own hands before he grows out of whatever the left is peddling these days. Anyway, the Jew hadn’t slept in Paris and its fucking with his motivation.
“Your main target is either the Guest or the Host,” who said that to me? Aren’t I the guest capable of hosting? Which handler or adviser said that to me? Yes, who said something crazy like that, say the Ferns all at once as he lies in the bed. Get your shit together Man, get some real sleep! says Yaelle in his head. “You’re a fucking tourist act like a tourist and don’t get into unscripted shit no one needs you to do. Don’t make us look bad.”
“Take a deep breath and remember the face of G-d”, Bashir once told him. God has no face, he has no hands, he has no actual gender, he is all knowing and all seeing; he is beneficent and merciful and has written a destiny for you, for us all”. Bashir is no zealot; a wife and kid does that to you; even for a Hamas sympathizer he still has too many real-world attachments; such as a wife and newly born son. Yet, the new Palestinian Nelson Mandella will be here in seven days’ time. Whatever he believes in he also believes in destiny.
I think it was Marty; it might have been Marcy. Gruff old war weathered Marty. Marty was a retired spook, maybe. Which agency didn’t matter. A cigar smoking Israeli who didn’t even think I should be here in Beirut, not now, not ever. It wasn’t him that put the zealous ideas in my head. With his stories of melting dismembered Fatahniks in bathtubs, or “the impending EMP attack on Tehran”. No night with Marty was over without a threat, or the impending threat to send Iran back to the Neolithic age.
“The place is one big Jew death trap,” Marty warned him. “Every single conversation could just about get you tortured or killed for what? For nothing.”
Marty is a slowly dying old man. Ashkenazi can live for 120 years. His world was the old world. A world where Zionism meant hope and freedom, at least to him. Was he also bitter? No one could tell. He lives well. Clinging to all the things he isn’t allowed to say, ready for the bombs to fall on Tehran. Telling the same old anecdote about “they need to love their kids more than they want to kill our kids.” Telling stories about meeting Golda Meir and Yasser Arafat.
“Well, if you’re going to be there anyway boychik, maybe you could do a job for your people,” Marty told him right before. “The Guest or the Host could die, either one. Whoever you can get closer to. Only if it’s supernatural looking. No air strikes inside the City right now.”
No one at all anywhere actually thought the Jew should be in Beirut for any reason at all. No one besides Bashir had given him any good rope besides maybe Suheil; but Suheil Tajer gave him tourist rope and Bashir had a whole plan. Well, it was both their plan, wasn’t it, but without Bashir and the Lion’s Den it could never work. It also probably will not work unless the Israelis invade Lebanon, which could happen any day now. That would make all the factions desperate. Every day Hezbollah fired a few rockets at Israel and Israel fired a few back; and Gaza was now again hell on earth. The body count could get as high as 50,000 by the time it was all wrapped up. Maybe even more. From the Otriad, no back up except Kaveh Ashuri and an Austrian woman named Karen Gruber, coming in near New Years. He didn’t count on Bashir in the same way, not in the make it our alive same way. Marcy says this is all “destiny”.
Marcy is some kind of witch. A sorceress. Maybe “shaman” is the right word. A tricky fourth dimensional scam artist?” She often hypothesized about the “end of times”, or “beginning of a new time”. She often hypnotized the Jew, at least several times and helped him see certain things. And that’s why, or should I say where, the Jew of Beirut turned for advice; to a retired spy, and a Witch descended from Adam Luria, the Rabbi who wrote the Shulhan Arukh. And the gentleman Trader of course. But the Jew was working with and for Yousef Bashir. Working for the cause of Middle East Confederalism. Even now ten years on he remembers the words of Bashir at the 5th Congress in Western Massachusetts woods; “The territory is just too small, too small for the lives and aspirations of 16 million Judeans and Palestinians; it is as small as it is all illegitimate. The borders of the Middle East are shaped by Sykes-Picot not us; the answer is not one state, two state; it is to birth a Middle East Confederation that stretches from the Maghreb to the Indus River; and delivers us all from warfare fueled by the foreign power after the resources under our sands.” Bashir and Adoneav wrote that together in the Heller School and then spent ten years laying the groundwork that would soon be tested.
“Marty ultimately said, “you probably won’t make it out in one piece”, and Marcy said it was “fulfillment of my destiny” to be there. Not just my destiny but perhaps a pivotal moment in a spiritual journey I was bound to undertake. A celestial pivot point.”
“Whatever you do, don’t go to their newly renovated synagogue,” little Karessa Abe had told him.
“Why would I poke my head in there?”
“Because you’re a tourist, not a terrorist, you gotta take pictures of stuff, you gotta go on sightseeing tours. And ask dumb questions about history. But don’t go see the new synagogue please. No one needs to really know you’re a Jew. Why run that in anyone’s face. Why test them?” The trouble is, the Jew isn’t just dumb, he’s dundunbanza; and he doesn’t like taking pictures of things. He likes living a free life. Which often means doing whatever he feels like, if doesn’t trample the rights of others. A key ideological element of the Abdullah Ocalan “Free Life” concept is that “it is better to live every day as a free person and meet the end when it arrives, then live a very long life like a slave”. Back in Newyorkgrad there was a suicide each month in the ambulance service. Back in Newyorkgrad your bank account was empty or near empty each time you paid the stupid motherfucking evil Jew rent.
Yousef Bashir once said, “If you do this job with us your bank account will never be empty, and you will have friends all over the world.” Well, if that wasn’t a value preposition whatever it would be. None of that matters to the Jew. So, there was a 1-day layover of sleepless agony in Paris, and it was there that he realized this was probably it, he was probably not ever coming back. He spoke by satellite phone with not Marty the possible spy, or Marcy the shaman, Witch whatever. He lights up a Cedar smoke and dials up Yousef Bashir, his old friend from the Strip called Gaza.
ADONAEV
What’s a Jack knife to a swan?
YOUSEF BASHIR
What’s a hero to a hooligan? Good to hear from you, glad you arrived safely.
ADONAEV
I hate airplanes. Everything about them.
BASHIR
How’s the hotel?
ADONAEV
It’s fine. I’m gonna rent another one tomorrow. I don’t like the energy on the Christian side.
BASHIR
Well don’t get kidnapped.
ADONAEV
How’s your son doing?
BASHIR
Fatherhood is very time consuming. But extremely rewarding.
ADONAEV
That is what I hear.
BASHIR
You need to go to an address in District Chiya. In the southern suburbs, Al Dahiya. I’ll provide it to you. See an old, trusted friend of ours from Graduate school. I’ll message you on Telegram with a phone number to call. It’s a Tea House right next to Shatila Camp where I’m sending you. Here you’ll find people to help us. Ask for ‘the Host’. I’ll be in Beirut in seven days, Kaveh is coming sooner.
ADONAEV
I hope this all works out.
BASHIR
Why would this not work out? Do not have any useless Jewish doubts. We have the numbers; we have the will. The Party is with us! No doubts. You are the best man we have for this job.
ADONAEV
I’ll do my best.
BASHIR
You need better than your absolute best to pull this off. You need something extra special. But the pieces are all in place man. So, you just stick to the plan, and all will be okay. Everyone is ready, and you my Judean Friend are the tip of the spear. You use that Jew magic for Allah, and everyone will be your ally. We have spoken about this for years. This is the only way forward. So do not get kidnapped!
ADONAEV
I will do my very best.
BASHIR
You stay alive man, and I will be there soon. Go recruit some local talent, you are always such a people person. The people are with us, Allah is with us. Every one of the comrades is with us! We cannot fail this time. Yalla52.
Jansher is a mustached bear of a man, clad in a forest green multicam uniform gesticulating all his lessons with his animated hands. He is the Georgian born Kadro entrusted with ideological training of incoming foreign fighters aiding the revolution in Rojava.
“A few hours ago, the Turkish State rocket bombed our training academy on the plateau of Mt. Qerechow.”
Eighteen Hevals perished then and there in the barrage, some of them newly arrived foreign volunteers. Five Peshmerga also died in the strikes. They were visiting us for tea. The training base has been moved down the ridge into the oil pumping facility. It is unclear what makes the new location any safer. A new batch of internationals has just arrived from Sulaymaniyah. The lessons and training must continue.
JANSHER
“People were being massacred and sold into sexual slavery. Gang rapes and decapitations were gleefully being live streamed. What exactly would you have done?” recounts Heval Jansher the intellectual Georgian Kadro responsible for the ideological and historical training of new Internationalist volunteers.
“We came down from the mountains in convoys of pickup trucks, semi-armored school buses and on foot. We moved in fearless columns, committing perhaps half of our remaining beleaguered armed forces. Tens of thousands of Yazidi men, women and children were huddling helplessly and exposed in the Shengal mountains. Without our intervention all their men would have been massacred and their women sold off in markets. In Kobane around this same time Daesh has surrounded our Syrian Kurdish brothers and sisters and were on the verge of wiping us off the ground in North Syria. At that time ISIS was 30 miles from Baghdad and 100 miles from Damascus. Everyday hundreds of foreign fanatics joined them. Entering easily with the help of the Turkish state.”
“We broke through the Turkish lines and along with American airstrikes saved Kobane from destruction. We literally saved the lives of over 50,000 Yazidis trapped in the Sinjar facing Daesh genocide. We took up positions in Kirkuk awaiting an inevitable Daesh or Iraqi Army attack.”
Sometimes we changed out of our baggy green guerrilla uniforms into those of local forces or simply took the uniform off. Without the Party, without the People’s Defense Forces which bolstered every Y.P.G./Y.P.J. position there would have been no one for the Americans to arm as it would have all been Islamic State territory.
It is possible that the P.K.K., the Kurdistan Workers Party did some very nasty things internally and externally during its forty-year war with the Turkish State. Certainly, there were both internal purges of real and imagined counter revolutionaries as well as deliberate attacks on civilians, but war is war, and war is very brutal on absolutely everyone.
The P.K.K. was trained in war by the Palestinians in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon in the 1970’s. There is a historic sympathy that the Party has to the cause of Palestine as a thankful result of this early collaboration. It is completely unacknowledged, and unsubstantiated that the Russians also trained the P.K.K. But that’s who was hanging out in the Bekaa Valley in the 1980’s. Palestinian guerrillas. Iranian special forces. Lebanese Shiite partisans. Russian spies.
The P.K.K. got openly involved in the fight against ISIS first in Kobane and then in Sinjar. It can be said in unambiguous terms that without the leadership of the Party, assisted by coalition air power the revolution in Rojava would not have survived the Islamic State onslaught. Abdullah Ocalan has been in prison since 1999.
A variety of tactical and ideological innovations have had to be made for us to survive. However, the adaptation of Democratic Confederalism is not a publicity stunt or mere revisionism. The Party has had to adapt, Ocalan has helped us find the context to adapt. Without his leadership the P.K.K. would not have withstood the tumultuous collapse of global state socialism in the 1990s.
The Revolution in Rojava is of course a product of Party discipline and functionally speaking there is extraordinarily little difference between the Y.P.G./Y.P.J. and the People’s Defense Forces49 of the P.K.K., most of the Y.P.G./Y.P.J. commanders are P.K.K. cadres.
In the insurrection against the Turkish State which began in this phase in 1984, over 50,000 people died and most of them were Kurds. If nasty, brutal violent things such as burying people alive, executing busloads of Turkish civil servants, carrying out suicide bombings, periodically purging the ranks of real or accused counter revolutionaries.
But even though we are declared a terrorist organization because Turkey is so important to N.A.T.O. and the Kurdish issue is so intractable, the U.S. led coalition of course used the Y.P.G./Y.P.J. dressed up as the Syrian Democratic Forces to annihilate ISIS. The Turkish state had a daily telephone riot with their American counterparts. No one was stupid. Everyone knew every dollar, every rifle and every bit of training given to the Syrian Democratic Forces which was over 60% Kurdish Y.P.G./Y.P.J. anyway would be routed to the P.K.K. when the war with ISIS was over and the fighting resumed in earnest between the Kurdish allies and Turkish Army. But, in 2015 after Kobane there was no other reliable ally on the ground and the Turks had to wait for the dust to settle. In Kobane the tide was turned for ISIS and the S.D.F. became the default U.S. Coalition proxy in Syria. Between 2015 and 2018 the S.D.F. smashed ISIS towns and cities from the North and the Assad Regime aided by the Russians hit them from the West. With no friends, under attack in every direction the once seemingly invincible Jihadists of Daesh were defeated, falling back to Ar-Raqqah and holes in the desert to hide. The Regime forces, Hezbollah, the S.D.F., the P.K.K. the Coalition, the Iraqi Army, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the al-Hashid ash-Sha’bi Popular Mobilization Forces50 we all ground them under our boot heels on all sides. Now only Deir Ez-Zor is left to liberate. But once these Cheta Daesh are temporarily defeated, isolated, trampled on and crushed in some shitty desert town that will change nothing. The Saudi funded and Pakistani spread Wahabbi-Salfist51 virus. By no means will this war be over any time soon.
By 2014 around the time that the Y.P.G./ Y.P.J. militia, assisted heavily by the P.K.K.’s People’s Defense Forces, the K.D.P. Peshmerga and the Coalition airstrikes were battling their way out of the ISIS siege in Kobane, effectively cementing for five years an American led Coalition- leftist Kurdish alliance and changing the dynamics of the Civil War in the North of Syria completely. But no one was stupid, not Turkey, not Daesh not the American Special Forces sent to arm and coordinate airstrikes with us. There were acrimony upon acronyms, there were shells of meaningless letters to make the American Congress feel better about releasing military aid. No one Heval was completely stupid. We all knew that the very minute Daesh was defeated we’d be alone and that all these enemies and friends knew the truth. That nothing happening politically or militarily in North Syria would be decided except by the Party.
The P.K.K. Our Party, the Kurdistan Workers Party! To the Turks we are nefarious terrorists. They want to hunt us down and kill us all. For we are an existential threat to the Turkish State. All states, really Hevals. They convinced America and Europe to adopt that line. To the Kurdish people the premier Party of Resistance to oppression and total annihilation as a coherent people. The very last defense against seemingly triumphant Capitalist Modernity. The only military force capable of defeating I.S.I.S. on the ground. An entity that is outside the immediate theatre of war, except for Russia and China, still very much considered a terror group by the West and N.A.T.O. forces of which the Turkish State contributes the second largest military force. Over 250,000 combatants.
No one in their wildest dreams can imagine that when the smoke clears and ash settle that the first Democratic Confederalist polity, safeguarding some 4-5 million people will be allowed to survive. But for now, the total rubble of what was left from the siege of Kobane has in defiance been rebuilt in the sprawl of white brutalist two to six story dwellings buttressing in defiance the long white wall and treacherous minefield the Turks built across the entire northern border.
Says Heval Commander Cancer, pronounced ‘Jansher’ the Guerrilla from his notes:
JANSHER
“Actually, I tried to prepare them for a lifestyle of revolutionary militancy. Kill the enemy. Kill the enemy before the enemy can airstrike, execute, torture or disappear you and your friends. I don’t think they all got it. The training was just too short. They retained much of their Western bourgeoisie privileges. They thought it would maybe be like a movie. It’s a shame the British woman died, she was the one with possibly the very most revolutionary potential, for a foreigner excluding the Germans. That’s all I can say about that, Heval.” Heval is the Kurdish Kurmanji word for friend, or comrade. In case you had forgotten that. Sometimes I find it best to repeat myself repeatedly to make sure you’re paying attention. I was born in Georgia. I’m not even ethnically Kurdish, actually.
Within the Kurdish movement there is a tendency to imbibe a rather endless amount of black tea. A tendency to have poor sleeping habits. A tendency to chain smoke. But they also light their own cigarettes. To let another light your cigarette is ideologically suspect.
Sometimes, the Party has debated on banning cigarette smoking, like it has alcohol, drugs, sex, romance, having kids, having a family, contacting your immediate family and acquiring any material things beyond what fits in a ruck sack, in service of the war effort. However, being a revolutionary militant is quite stressful actually. And there sure are a lot of things that can kill you faster than a cigarette. A whole lot of things, actually.
“The legend goes that in a meeting in a tea house in the village of Lice near Diyarbakir City, on November 25th of 1978 a group of young students lead by Abdullah Ocalan founded the Kurdistan Workers Party and launched a revolution unlike anything the world had ever seen before it,” explains Heval Jansher. A guerrilla in good standing with the Party. Good standing means trust. Good standing means not being a Pizkarek; a problem. They need to be platformed, as we say. Bad standing means re-education, prolonged isolation, or indefinite detention. Eventually, if nothing else seems to work, it means a bullet and an unmarked grave. We are not fucking around. There is a revolution to defend. When this is over, everything sacrifice, every shahid will have allowed the birth of a new world from the ashes of the old. But if we fail, there is more at stake than the deliverance of a Kurdish national autonomy. There is more at stake than redemption of a flailing old idea about liberty, equality, democracy. If we survive the coming years. If we secure the Rojava Revolution. These ideas will spread like wildfire. If we are vanquished, human rights will be buried with us.
“Genocide on the Holy Mountain. The men are executed. The women and children enslaved.”
On August 3, 2014, ISIS attacked Sinjar. Yazidis were hunted like animals. Men were lined up and shot. Women and girls, some as young as nine, were sold as slaves. Boys were stolen, forced to fight, or die. Thousands fled to Mount Sinjar, trapped under the sun without food or water. Many perished before help came. Mass graves fill the region. Survivors live in ruins or camps, haunted by the names of the missing.
“We woke up with dreams of life. By nightfall, everything was ash.”
Bahaa Ilyas and Roza Saeed Al-Qaidi are Yazidi activists.These are their words. Taken from reports made right after the genocide:
“The sun greeted me as I woke on the morning of 3 August 2014. I was a researcher at the University of Duhok, 200 miles from Sinjar. It was to be a joyful day as I was waiting – first for my salary, and then for Roza, my then-fiancée. Roza and I had plans to go shopping for our engagement party, which was to take place a few days later. We were excited, our future now starting to unfurl before us. We have not felt that way again since.”
“As Roza and I waited at the bank, uneasy murmurs started around us, and phones began to ring. My phone vibrated; a friend was calling. ISIS has attacked Sinjar, he said frantically. Time stopped as the news took hold of us. Roza phoned her sister who was at her home on the outskirts of Duhok. Her sister told her that videos were being published online of ISIS fighters in Sinjar, and that there was news of killings of Yazidis in the streets. I called another friend, a Yazidi man in a village in Sinjar, who described ISIS vehicles with banners and heavy artillery driving past his home. My mother who was in my family’s town of Bashiqa, also called to say she had heard that ISIS was slaughtering Yazidi men and taking away women. Yazidis are fleeing,” she said, urgently.
“I withdrew as much cash as I could and ran outside to flag down a car to take me to my mother in Bashiqa. Roza waited for a bus to take her to her family’s village outside of Duhok. We said goodbye tearfully, but quickly. We were not sure when we would see each other again. I made my way to my town, into which ISIS had not yet advanced. My entire family was put into the cars and drove to Lalesh, the Yazidi holy site near Duhok. Concerned that ISIS would advance to Lalesh, women and children were then driven by car to Duhok. Some of my uncles and myself followed on foot. Two days later, ISIS occupied Bashiqa. My family survived, but thousands of Yazidis in Sinjar did not.”
“The Yazidis are a religious minority that has existed for millennia. With less than a million individuals, most of us live in the Kurdish Region of Iraq. Other Yazidi communities live in Syria, Turkey, Russia, Armenia, and Georgia, as well as farther afield, in Germany, the US and elsewhere. The Yazidi faith descends from the ancient religions of Mesopotamia, and today we believe in the one God. That the Yazidis are a pre-Judaic religion and so are not ‘People of the Book’, has long motivated the political, economic and social marginalization of our community.”
“At various points throughout our history, attempts have been made to wipe us out– we regularly refer to the ‘73 genocides’ that we have suffered. Prior to the ISIS attack, it was the Ottoman Turks who had made the most successful attempt. Misunderstandings of our faith are deeply rooted, and it is not uncommon for people to casually – and wrongly – refer to us as ‘devil worshippers’ or ‘those who worship stones’. ISIS founded its genocidal attack on these old prejudices.”
“In the early hours of the morning of 3 August 2014, while I was still asleep in Duhok, ISIS fighters left their bases in Iraq and Syria and moved towards the Sinjar region in northwest Iraq, close to the Iraqi Syrian border. Hundreds of villages are spread out around the base of Mount Sinjar, with one main town, Sinjar town, huddled at the base of the southeastern side of the mountain. Mount Sinjar, an arid 100-kilometre-long mountain range, forms the region’s heart. Before the ISIS attacks, the majority of the region’s inhabitants were Yazidis, with a smaller number of Sunni Arabs. The relationship between the Yazidi and Arab communities, who lived together in Sinjar town and in some of the other villages, was built on friendship and neighborly relations that extended across generations.”
“ISIS attack on Sinjar came two months after they occupied Mosul in June 2014. It was quickly apparent that the Yazidis were their target, our existence perceived to be a stain on their so-called caliphate. Some families fled into the Kurdish Region of Iraq. Others escaped to the upper slopes of Mount Sinjar, where they were besieged by ISIS. Thousands were trapped under Iraq’s August sun, with no shade, water, food or medical care. Hundreds died on the mountain before the Syrian Kurdish forces, operating under the cover of Iraqi and American airstrikes, rescued the survivors.”
“ISIS captured thousands of Yazidis in their villages or on the roads during their attempt to flee. Within 72 hours, most of the villages had been emptied, with the exception of Kocho, which ISIS did not vacate its residents until 15 August 2014. Upon capture, ISIS fighters separated Yazidi men and adolescent boys from their families. All the men and boys were executed, often by a shot to the back of the head. Their families were sometimes made to watch. ISIS fighters then moved the Yazidi women and children deeper into ISIS-controlled territory where they were registered. ISIS took note of the ages of the women and girls over the age of 9: whether they were married or not; whether they had children and, if so, how many. In short, they were pricing them.”
“Yazidi women and girls have been sold and resold into sexual slavery, beaten, starved and forced into labor in the homes of ISIS fighters. ISIS does not permit the sale of Yazidis to non-ISIS members, but the money to be made is enough for fighters to risk their own lives breaching this rule. Fighters sell women and children back to their families for tens of thousands of US dollars.Yazidi families are selling all they have, and borrowing more, to buy back their women and children from the men who raped and tortured them. There has been tremendous media attention on Yazidi women and girls who have been enslaved – but there has been little attempt to understand how the crimes ISIS commits against our women and girls fit into the group’s attempts to destroy our community. The Yazidi women and girls held by ISIS are not ‘sex slaves.’ They are genocide survivors, and for those who did not survive, they are victims.”
“Boys over the age of 7 are taken from their mothers and forced into ISIS training camps, where they are indoctrinated and taught to fight. Some have died fighting on ISIS’s frontlines. It has been difficult to locate the boys and rescue them.”
“As ISIS-controlled territory in Iraq and Syria came under aerial attack by the US-led coalition, Yazidi captives, trapped in fighters’ houses and on ISIS military bases, were reportedly among the casualties. As the ‘caliphate’ crumbled, ISIS fighters fled, taking the captured Yazidi women and children with them. Their fate and whereabouts remain unknown.”
“Today, I am back living in Duhok and working as a research assistant on the LSE Middle East Centre’s project ‘Documenting Yazidi Victims of ISIS’. The project aims to build a consolidated database of Yazidi victims by age, gender, location and crime(s) suffered, using rigorous demographic techniques modelled on the methodology accepted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Our team will – with the consent of the survivors and their communities – create and organize data collected for use in accountability proceedings, identification of remains in mass graves, humanitarian interventions, community-building, and broader advocacy. It is specifically envisaged, and is an integral aspect of the methodological planning, that the documentation project will play a significant role in achieving justice for Yazidis against the crimes committed against them by ISIS. The data will ground existing advocacy for accountability processes in national, regional and international courts and tribunals. Once courts or tribunals seize the cases, the documentation project’s data will provide reliable information of high probative value for use before various existing and future accountability processes. I am proud to be part of this effort.”
“For the Yazidis who have survived, most of us now live in displaced people’s camps, unfinished buildings and in rented accommodation in the Kurdish Region of Iraq. A small number have received asylum in Germany, Sweden, Canada and elsewhere. Others, in their desperation to find safety, have fled on dinghies to Greece. Some, including people I know, have drowned in the Mediterranean. A few have taken the risk and returned to Sinjar, which – though destroyed – is now under the control of the Iraqi central government. The region, littered with IEDs, is not yet safe. Mass graves holding the remains of Yazidis are regularly uncovered. There is a need for forensic preservation and analysis and more generally for reconstruction. Living with dignity in Sinjar remains a challenge.”
“The Yazidis continue to hope for the rescue and return of the women and children still held by ISIS. We hold out hope that some of the Yazidi men captured have survived and might also be reunited with their families. We have survived, for now, ISIS’s attempt to destroy us, but we remain a deeply traumatized community in need of support: psycho-social support, educational and livelihood initiatives, including those specifically aimed at increasing female social and economic independence, forensic documentation of mass graves, reconstruction, including infrastructure for potable water, healthcare and education – our list is long.But if I were to summarize, I would say the Yazidi community, displaced from Sinjar and desirous to return, needs three things: assured security, justice for the crimes committed against us and recognition of the genocide. The prejudices against our community must be uprooted and made to wither in the light. This requires the calling of the crime committed against us by its true name.”
“The morning, I awoke thinking about my engagement belonging to a more innocent time, one to which Roza and I cannot return. This morning, I sat in front of my computer. On its screen are the names of thousands and thousands of Yazidis.”
“They are categorized: killed, kidnapped, missing. I know they, like me, they once woke up looking forward to the day ahead of them.”
Report by:
Bahaa Ilyas is a Yazidi activist who has been in close contact with internally displaced people through different agencies and organizations since 2014. Currently, he is a researcher on the LSE Middle East Centre’s ‘Documenting Yazidi Victims of ISIS’ project.
Roza Saeed Al-Qaidi is a Yazidi activist. Since ISIS’ attacks on the Yazidis in August 2014, she has been involved in humanitarian aid and has interviewed Yazidi survivors, particularly women and girls who had been sexually enslaved by ISIS fighters, on behalf of several different organizations.
***
As Further explains the fixer “Abu Hamza”, the assumed Kunya47 of a Kurdish businessman named Alacan Al-Biban of Kirkuk City, fixer, artist, gentleman, man about town in Erbil.
ABU HAMZA
“The Yazidis live in and around a holy mountain called Jabal Sinjar. It lies along the Syrian Iraqi border 80 kilometers West from Mosul in the Nineveh Governorate. Their holiest site called Lalish, the tomb of their avatar for the Peacock Angel48 “Tawuse Melek”, Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir is found between three mountains. The Arafat, the Misat and the Hizrat.”
On the highest peak of Jabal Sinjar is the Chel Mera Temple. “The Temple of Forty Men”. The temple is so ancient no one remembers how it got that name, but it is believed forty men were buried there.
The Yazidis have three hereditary castes; the Murids, the Sheikhs and the Pirs. In some ways their beliefs are linked to Sufism and Zoroastrianism. They believe in reincarnation and forbid intermarriage with other groups. Although some claim they have holy books called the Kiteba Cilwe (Book of Revelation) and Mishefa Res (Black Book), there is great reason to believe these are forgeries created in 1911-1913 and virtually all Yazidi religious theology is a chain or oral transmission called Qawls; hymns with cryptic allusions and supporting stories.
The Yazidis are ethnically and linguistically Kurdish. They speak Kurmanji, like the Kurds of Syria and Turkey. They are concentrated in Northwestern Iraq in a highly mountainous area called Sinjar by the Arabs or Shengal, by the Kurds. They are monotheistic, Gnostic religion. Over the years Sunni Muslim Arabs have typically accused them of devil worship, because of their belief in a pea cock fire angel. In 1414 their sacred Lalish was razed. In 1640, Ottoman Turks carried out a pogrom killing around 5,000 of them. In 1892 Turkish Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II mass conscripted the men to eradicate their faith. In 1974-1975 Saddam Hussein deported Yazidis and re-settled Arabs in Sinjar. Around 137 Yazidi villages were destroyed. In 2007 there was a Jihadi campaign of bus bombings, kidnappings and terrorism that left as many as 300 Yazidis death and over 1,500 injured. In 2009 Al-Qaeda used a series of truck bombs in Sinjar to kill upwards of 500 Yazidis in Qahtaniya and al-Jazira. So, Turks and Arabs killing Yazidi is as Sunni Islamic as tea and shawarma.
The story of the woman being fed, oh yes, fed, her one-year-old son. A later story.
In August of 2014 “Those who run from death”, the KDP Peshmerga, abandoned their positions and allowed almost all of Shengal to fall to ISIS without firing a shot. ISIS then began a rapid campaign of summary execution, forced conversions, sex slaving and out right genocide. On August 3rd, 2014, ISIS captured the holy city of Sinjar. A massacre began. Over 200,000 Yazidis fled into the surrounding mountainside. 50,000 of them were trapped on Mt. Sinjar, exposed to the elements with ISIS bandits raping and murdering their family and friends. ISIS Cheta shot 70 to 90 men in Quiniyah Village, 360 in Harden village. 200 Yazidis were lined up and shot in Sinjar city. 60 to 70 killed in Ramadi Jabal. 50 in Dhola village, 100 in Khana Sor and 200 more on the road between Adaniaya and Jazeera. Dozens in al-Shimal village and more on the road from Matu to Jabal Sinjar. Women were gang raped. Children were buried alive. In most cases the Yazidi girls and women were separated for rape and sex traffic to various ISIS held cities. Old women were shot.
Using rape as a weapon of war Daesh bandits had gynecologists examine their captives to set slave prices based on virginity. They were treated like cattle. There were online price indexes. Sales on Telegram, Facebook and WhatsApp. Prices varied. Between $2,000.00 and $10,000.00. Less than 5 women escaped. Many died in captivity or allied bombardment.
The Sinjar Mountains are over 100 km long-range running east to west. The lower western segment in Syria and eastern higher segment in Iraq. The range is viewed as sacred by the Yazidis who consider them the place where Noah’s ark came to rest.
On August 8th the United States President Barack Obama ordered airstrikes against ISIS in the area of Sinjar. Air strikes and supply drops for the Yazidis hiding there.
ABU HAMZA
The 50,000 Yazidi besieged on top of Mount Sinjar began to die from hunger and thirst and exposure to the elements. On August 10th P.K.K. and Y.P.G. guerrillas, with truck mounted heavy machine guns supported by mobile light infantry charges, broke the ISIS siege and began guiding Yazidis to refugee camps and shelter. Some were evacuated by the Peshmerga via Cezanne and Telkocher roads to Dohuk, Iraq-K.R.G. Though the majority broke out with the P.K.K.-Y.P.G. safe corridor to Rojava.
They fought most of the rescue operation from pick-up trucks or on foot. With small backpacks which mostly had been loaded with extra magazines and hand-grenades, canteens of water and sometimes a few cans of Mortadella. Or canned olives or whatever there was left before they shipped out. Clad in green baggy fatigues the PKK made a rapid incursion through ISIS held territory to launch the largest humanitarian evacuation of the war, saving the lives of tens of thousands of civilians hiding on the mountain. By August 8th most of the remaining Yazidis had been evacuated by the P.K.K. to the K.R.G. areas and Rojava. On August 10th airstrikes opened a passage for another P.K.K. evacuation into Syria of some additional 20,000 to 30,000 Yazidis. But there were still around 10,000 trapped on the mountain by 13th August receiving airdrops of food and water from the coalition forces. Eventually, the guerrillas got almost everybody still alive out alive.
On August 15th there was a large massacre in Kojo. Over 80 men were killed outright. The entire male population of Khocho, around 400 men were butchered. Around 1,000 women and children were abducted for sex slavery. In Tal Afar 200 Yazidi were shot at the prison. A report in late September concluded over 5,000 Yazidis had been exterminated. Several thousand, perhaps as many as 7,000-10,800 women and girls were carried off to Mosul, Raqqa and other ISIS strongholds. The confirmation of the missing versus the dead has not been cleared up yet and will not be for many years later.
Repeated raids by P.K.K. commandos rescued 51 Yazidis in March and 53 in April. Most of the abducted women and girls are still missing, having been living in brutal, in-human slavery for over four years. Most have been presumed dead. Mass graves keep getting found all over the liberated areas.
“From time to time a young woman, an escapee, jumps off Mt. Sinjar. That will probably go on for many years to come, a dark disturbed pattern in a community wholly unaccustomed to this level of barbarism” explains Alacan, known mostly to outsiders and journalists as “Abu Hamza”. “They were all mentally and physically abused by the vile bearded Chetta in ways we cannot ever possibly comprehend. That few can even bear to hear. Fewer still wish to talk about.”
WALTER SEBASTIAN ADLER 