MEC-SCENE XXXII

SCENE XXXII

Kobani (Ayn al-Arab),

Rojava Region, Northern Syria, 2014ce

***

Kobani—also known as Ayn al-Arab—lies to the east of the Euphrates River.

The town had grown up around a 1912 train station built as a stop on the Ottoman Empire’s Berlin-to-Baghdad railway. The city was largely home to Armenians and Kurds and had a population of about 45,000 when Syria’s civil war began in 2011.

In July 2012, Kurdish forces in the Y.P.G./Y.P.J./P.K.K. took over protection of the city of Kobani and all the districts around it.

“Kobani holds a strategic position on the border with Turkey. From Kobani in the West, past Sinjar and toward Erbil in the East, lies a corridor of oil pipelines and refineries. ISIS was tapping the oil for more than $2 million per day in revenue. Control of Kobani would help solidify ISIS control of Syria’s oil fields. Locking down that revenue was part of the goal for creating the ISIS caliphate Under ISIS control, Kobani would also be a haven for recruits going south to fight in Iraq. Already over 50,000 had crossed in. The Battle of Kobani, also known as the Siege of Kobani, stands as a pivotal moment in the ongoing struggle for Kurdish autonomy and the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). From the Kurdish perspective, it represents a testament to their resilience, determination, and unwavering commitment to defend their land against tyranny and extremism.”

Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish town in northern Syria, found itself thrust into the international spotlight in 2014 as ISIS militants launched a brutal assault on the city. What ensued was a grueling battle that would come to symbolize the broader struggle against ISIS and the Kurdish people’s fight for survival.

On Sept. 16, ISIS forces seized a key bridge over the Euphrates. A drive with tanks and artillery captured small villages and brought ISIS to within 10 kilometers of Kobani by Sept. 20. Soon artillery fire was falling into the city. Turkey counted 130,000 Syrian Kurdish refugees streaming across the border four days later.

Up to 4,000 ISIS fighters were advancing in parts of the city. Countering them was a determined force of fighters, starting with groups of Syrian Kurds. They were soon joined by Peshmerga, official Kurdish forces of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, and numerous other groups. Kobani’s defenders were in trouble, though. ISIS took an important hill from the YPG—Kurdish militia in Syria—on Sept. 26. The momentum could overwhelm the city. Brazen ISIS forces behaved like an army moving freely, out in the open on the roads and arid terrain.

For the Kurds, Kobani was more than just a strategic location; it was a symbol of their identity and aspirations for self-determination. The town served as a beacon of hope for Kurds everywhere, a bastion of resistance against forces bent on eradicating their culture and way of life. As ISIS forces advanced, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) rallied to defend Kobani, drawing on their guerrilla warfare tactics and fierce determination. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, they refused to yield, vowing to fight to the last breath to protect their homeland.

The battle for Kobani was characterized by intense urban warfare, with ISIS militants employing tactics of terror and brutality in their attempts to capture the city. However, the Kurds, bolstered by their strong sense of solidarity and unity, stood firm, repelling wave after wave of attacks.

The resilience of the Kurdish fighters drew widespread admiration and support from around the world, with volunteers flocking to join the ranks of the YPG and YPJ. Kurdish forces received crucial air support from the US-led coalition, which carried out airstrikes targeting ISIS positions and supply lines.

The battle for Kobani raged on for months, exacting a heavy toll on both sides. The city lay in ruins, its streets littered with the debris of war and the scars of conflict etched into its buildings. Yet, amidst the devastation, the spirit of the Kurdish people remained unbroken. Finally, after months of fierce fighting, the tide began to turn in favor of the Kurds. With the support of coalition airstrikes and reinforcements, they succeeded in driving ISIS militants out of Kobani, dealing a significant blow to the terrorist organization’s ambitions in the region.

The liberation of Kobani was a moment of triumph for the Kurdish people, a testament to their courage, resilience, and unwavering commitment to freedom. It was a victory not just for the residents of Kobani, but for Kurds everywhere who had long yearned for a homeland where they could live in peace and dignity. However, the battle for Kobani also came at a great cost. Thousands of lives were lost, and the city lay in ruins, its infrastructure devastated by the violence. The scars of war would take years to heal, and the memory of those who sacrificed their lives in defense of Kobani would never be forgotten. In the aftermath of the battle, the Kurds faced the daunting task of rebuilding their shattered city and reclaiming their lives. Despite the challenges that lay ahead, they remained steadfast in their determination to build a better future for themselves and future generations.

The Battle of Kobani serves as a powerful reminder of the Kurdish people’s resilience in the face of adversity and their unwavering commitment to freedom and justice. It is a chapter in their long and tumultuous history that will be remembered for generations to come, a testament to the indomitable spirit of a people who refuse to be silenced or oppressed.

***

The streets of Kobani were a labyrinth of destruction and defiance, where every corner held the echoes of a city once vibrant, now scarred by the relentless onslaught of war. Islamic State militants had laid siege to this Kurdish town for months, seeking to crush its spirit and claim it as their own. But the Kurds, fierce and determined, had refused to yield.

Amidst the rubble-strewn alleys and crumbling buildings, a small group of Kurdish fighters moved with calculated precision. They were led by Baran, a seasoned commander with weathered features that spoke of countless battles fought and survived. His eyes, steely and unwavering, scanned the horizon as he led his comrades towards a strategic position overlooking a key intersection. Suddenly, the crackle of gunfire erupted from a nearby building. Baran instinctively signaled his team to take cover, their movements fluid and practiced. Bullets whizzed overhead, kicking up debris and sending puffs of dust into the air. The staccato rhythm of AK-47s mingled with the shouts of militants, their voices laced with fanaticism and hatred.

“Keep it low! Return the fire!” Baran barks, his voice cutting through the chaos. His fighters responded with disciplined bursts of gunfire, aiming for the flashes of movement behind makeshift barricades. The air fills with the acrid scent of gunpowder as the skirmish intensifies.

Across the street, a group of Islamic State fighters sought to advance, using burnt-out vehicles and crumbling walls as cover. They moved with a deadly efficiency, their intent clear: to overrun the Kurdish position and tighten the noose around their defenses.

Baran gritted his teeth, his mind racing with tactics honed through years of guerrilla warfare. He gestured to one of his fighters, a young woman named Leyla, her braided hair peeking out from under a worn-out keffiyeh. “Leyla, cover our flank. Hassan, suppress their fire!”

Without hesitation, Leyla sprinted towards a nearby building, her movements swift and silent. She took up position on the second floor, peering through a shattered window. Below, she could see the militants’ movements, their black flags fluttering in the wind like ominous shadows.

Taking careful aim, Leyla squeezed the trigger of her rifle, sending precise shots towards the advancing fighters. One militant fell with a cry, clutching his leg in agony. The others scrambled for cover, momentarily disrupted by the sudden onslaught from an unexpected angle. Meanwhile, Hassan unleashed a torrent of bullets towards the militants’ position, forcing them to keep their heads down and buy precious moments for his comrades to reposition and regroup. But the lull in the gunfire was short-lived. With a renewed fervor, the Islamic State fighters launched a counterattack. They surged forward, shouting battle cries that reverberated through the war-torn streets. Baran’s team braced themselves, their hearts pounding with a mixture of adrenaline and determination.

The battle became a deadly dance of tactics and tenacity, each side pushing the other to the brink of exhaustion. The clatter of gunfire mingled with the distant rumble of artillery, a constant reminder of the larger war raging beyond Kobani’s borders.

Baran gritted his teeth as he fired off rounds, his movements fluid and precise. His mind raced, calculating each move, and anticipating the enemy’s next maneuver. Sweat trickled down his brow, mixing with the dust and grime of battle.

Suddenly, a grenade sailed through the air, landing with a thud amidst Baran’s team. Without hesitation, he shouted a warning, diving for cover as the explosion ripped through the air with a deafening roar. Shrapnel sprayed across the street, sending shards of metal and concrete flying in all directions.

Miraculously, Baran and his fighters emerged unscathed, their ears ringing from the blast. They exchanged quick glances, wordlessly reaffirming their resolve to fight on. Around them, the battlefield lay in tatters—a testament to the ferocity of their resistance and the brutality of their adversaries.

As the smoke cleared and the echoes of gunfire faded into the distance, Baran surveyed the scene with a mix of weariness and grim satisfaction. The Islamic State fighters, their advance stalled and their ranks thinned, began to retreat under the cover of smoke and confusion.

“We hold this ground,” Baran declared, his voice firm despite the fatigue that weighed heavily upon him. His comrades nodded in silent agreement; their faces streaked with sweat and determination.

And so, amidst the ruins of Kobani, where the scars of battle ran deep and the wounds of war were still raw, the Kurdish fighters stood defiant. They had faced the onslaught of the Islamic State with courage and resilience, turning the tide of battle one bullet, one grenade, one hard-won victory at a time.

***

The Siege of Kobanî was launched by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on 13 September 2014, to capture the Kobanî Canton and its main city of Kobanî (also known as Kobanê or Ayn al-Arab) in northern Syria, in the de facto autonomous region of Rojava. By 2nd October 2014, the Islamic State had succeeded in capturing 350 Kurdish villages and towns in the vicinity of Kobanê,generating a wave of some 300,000 Kurdish refugees, who fled across the border into Turkey‘s Şanlıurfa Province. By January 2015, this had risen to 400,000.The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and some Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions (under the Euphrates Volcano joint operations room), Peshmerga of the Kurdistan Regional Government, and American and US-allied Arab militaries airstrikes began to mount a last-minute defense.

For the next 112 days the world watched as the Kurdish forces defended the city street by street-by-street block by block in horrific bloody street fighting. Waves upon waves of Daesh truck bombs blowing young men and women apart. It was believed that the outnumbered and outgunned Free Syrian Army, Peshmerga, Y.P.G. and Y.P.J. were doomed and would be quickly annihilated. The Islamic State advanced with precision and with incredible confidence. In several prongs they attacked Kobane City murdering everyone standing in their way. Some people put them naked in cages, then burned them alive. Some they gang raped, some they scalped, beheaded or others they burned alive in cages.

In the ISIS mythology anyone killed by a female fighter is denied the glory of martyrdom, so they savagely set on any female defenders they captured. In many ways, every horrific thing you might associate with the Syrian Civil War came from the Islamic State, or the Assad Regime and or the Russians. But the brutality Daesh is known for, they recorded it gleefully. They broadcast it freely. They made it sleek for replay in dark corners of the internet. And, on the screens of Western TV.

In a Report by American Air Force analyst Rebecca Grant:

“When the so-called Islamic State set its sights on Kobani, Syria, in mid-September 2014—encircling Kurdish fighters there—then-Secretary of State John Kerry warned that the city couldn’t be saved. As Turkish tank crews watched tensely from across the border, the US Air Force and coalition air power went into action, making supply drops and hitting surrounding ISIS forces with bombs dropped from B-1B bombers.

The 112-day siege proved to be the turning point in America’s commitment to fighting in Syria, and a battle lab for dynamic air and ground tactics.”

Mosul, Iraq, fell to ISIS in June 2014. Three months later, ISIS fighters were battling Iraqi forces less than 25 miles from Baghdad. The fall of either Baghdad or Damascus would have sent a theological signal to an even greater number of foreign volunteers to enlist. At the time of Kobane, it was widely understood by the intelligence community that over 50,000 foreign fighters had joined ISIS. Largely entering through Turkey.

US and coalition airpower intervened, releasing 1,200 weapons in strikes during August and September 2014.

“As you know, this has been an important week for the US and our coalition forces as we began air strikes in Syria,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Sept. 26. US and Arab allies carried out 43 air strikes into Syria, he reported.

The first US airstrikes near Kobani began on Sept. 27. Air Force F-15Es struck an ISIS command and control center; a typical target for that phase of the campaign. Also in action were aircraft from the carrier USS George H. W. Bush. For the next two weeks, coalition air strikes continued, but only in small doses. Coalition planners struggled to pinpoint suitable targets and to work with Kobani’s defenders. By Sept. 30, the Pentagon reported 76 airstrikes in Syria, mostly near Kobani.

Washington was in shock. The Intelligence Community and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper “acknowledged that they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” President Barack Obama told “60 Minutes” on Sept. 30, 2014.

Defending Kobani would take a direct US commitment to defeating ISIS in Syria. While US and coalition partners were pledged to chase ISIS out of Iraq, Syrian policy was another matter. Fighting for Kobani meant more intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, more air strikes, and forging a relationship with groups of Syrian Kurds as new partners on the ground.

“You can’t defend Kobani, Baghdad, Mosul, Erbil, and Sinjar,” as well as conduct strikes “against the Islamic State in places such as Raqqa, with a limited number of ISR orbits to collect necessary intelligence,” a senior Pentagon official told Kate Brannen of Foreign Policy on Oct. 7.

Although the coalition apportioned air strikes to the beleaguered town, pessimism prevailed. A total of 135 air strikes had been carried out on Kobani targets by Oct. 9. “The US has now struck Kobani more than any other target except the Mosul dam,” Jim Sciutto of CNN tweeted on Oct. 9, 2014.

Still, Washington wavered. The Obama administration had committed publicly and at the United Nations to pursuing ISIS through Iraq. What about Syria

“As horrific as it is to watch in real time what is happening in Kobani … you have to step back and understand the strategic objective,” Kerry said at a news conference in Washington with Philip Hammond, Britain’s foreign secretary.

“We are trying to deprive ISIS of the overall ability to wage [war], not just in Kobani but throughout Syria and into Iraq,” Kerry added.

“No Can Do” screamed Time magazine’s headline on the prospects of saving Kobani.

“The US has been restricted in its ability to battle ISIS for two reasons: it waited for months before taking action, and then—per Obama’s orders—it decided not to commit any US ground troops to the fight,” Mark Thompson wrote in Time on Oct. 9, 2014. Katherine Wilkens of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace called Kobani “A Kurdish Alamo.”

“In a coalition where most of Washington’s regional partners are primarily focused on regime change in Syria, the jihadist attack on Kobani offers a test case of whether the United States can get its partners to temporarily set aside their other priorities and act effectively against the Islamic State,” Wilkens wrote in an Oct. 10, 2014, piece.

NATO allies such as the Netherlands and Belgium were deploying forces to join the coalition, and France was already in the fight. For the time being, their parliaments had restricted air strikes to territory in Iraq only. Ultimately, Bahrain, Britain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE air forces participated alongside the US providing air support for Kobani.

Airpower was the main tool available. “Just to remind, there’s not going to be a US ground combat role here,” Rear Adm. John Kirby, Pentagon spokesman, said on Oct. 10, 2014. “I’m putting that out very clearly.”

As for airpower, some doubted its effectiveness, given the slipping situation.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen because, again, in the absence of any ground force there, it is going to be difficult just through airpower to prevent ISIS from potentially taking over the town,” then-Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken told NBC News on Oct. 13.

Air strikes were, however, having an effect. The attacks quickly constricted the mobility of ISIS forces. “Before the air strikes happened, they pretty much had free rein,” admitted Kirby. “They don’t have that free rein anymore, because they know we’re watching from the air.”

ISIS forces got better at concealment, according to Kirby.

Two types of air strikes were underway. First was dynamic targeting of what Kirby called “mobile assets on the ground.” These included tanks, command posts, even trucks used in the oil smuggling. Deliberate, pre-planned targeting also went against “fixed targets, a headquarters building, command and control nodes, a finance center, oil refineries.” The idea was to prevent ISIS from consolidating its gains.

However, a sprinkling of strikes wasn’t going to be enough. ISIS forces and tanks advanced closer to the center of Kobani on Oct. 10. A spasm of suicide vehicle bombings followed as ISIS fighters tried to dislodge Kurdish strongpoints.

Both sides were now determined to prevail.

Saudi Arabia joined US fighters and bombers striking ISIS targets southwest of Kobani on Oct. 13.

“Rather than the bombing prompting a tactical retreat” by ISIS units, “they appear to have doubled down in their quest for Kobani,” observed Derek Flood, a journalist who was in Turkey on Oct. 15, 2014. As American air strikes rapidly increased in and around Kobani, ISIS fighters “ushered in reinforcements from their reservoir of recruits in al-Raqqa and Aleppo and ramped up their employment of vehicle-borne suicide bombers,” Flood wrote in the CTC Sentinel, West Point’s counterterrorism journal, in November 2014.

For ISIS, too, this was chosen ground. It clearly mattered to ISIS, Kirby said, “because they kept presenting themselves there and presenting targets.”

In fact, the air strikes put Kobani in the global spotlight. For the US and coalition partners, Kobani was on the verge of becoming a major failure.

Across the border, Turkish tanks lined up to keep a wary watch. Turkish civilians could see the fighting in Kobani from the town of Suruc on their side of the border.

ISIS fighters took over key checkpoints then a key outlying overlooking hill. And then drove the Kurdish defenders out of a key defensible school building. Defeat looks inevitable.

With Kobani nearly defeated, Washington made its move. NATO ally Turkey had entered the anti-ISIS coalition on Oct. 2. Now Turkey agreed to allow resupply to the Kurds to sustain the fight in Kobani. Washington placed its bet on airpower.

On Oct. 20, three USAF C-130s conducted multiple airdrops to resupply Kurdish forces, defending the city. In the airdrops were 24 tons of small arms and ammunition. The airdrops also included 10 tons of medical supplies. Kurdish authorities in Iraq provided the supplies, according to Central Command. As the operation progressed, Operation Inherent Resolve would log over 1.4 million pounds of supplies airdropped from August to December of 2014. From a strategic perspective, there was hope.

“For its campaign against Kobane, [ISIS] has converged en masse for a conventional attack upon a fixed geographic point,” observed Jill Sargent Russell of Kings College London. While ISIS “might momentarily hold an advantage against any concerted defense with effective fire support, they are weak and soft targets,” she pointed out in an Oct. 20, 2014, comment to Britain’s Daily Telegraph.

“Suddenly, the fight for this little-known town took on vast symbolic significance,” wrote Fred Kaplan in Slate on Oct. 31, 2014. “And if ISIS was telling the world that Kobani was a decisive battle along the path to the Islamic State’s victory, then Obama—who’d put American resources and credibility on the line—had little choice but to treat it as a decisive battle as well,” Kaplan assessed.

By early November, ISIS was failing to gain new ground. Four attempts to take a border crossing with Turkey had failed. ISIS called for reinforcements. So did the Kurdish fighters. Backed by steady US and coalition airpower, the Kurdish groups were securing their foothold in Kobani.

ISIS controlled about 60 percent of Kobani as of Nov. 5, 2014. It would prove to be their high-water mark.

The decision to assist Kobani marked a change in the US strategy in Syria. Now the US had to “deliver on helping develop a trained, moderate opposition in Syria that has the requisite leadership and military skills to actually go ahead and defend territory inside Syria,” as Kirby explained at the Pentagon.

What followed was two months of street-by-street fighting. For US airpower, the problem was that ISIS fighters had wrapped themselves around the city and what was left of its civilian population.

It was up to a combination of ISR and battlefield input from the Kurds to outline areas for strikes. As the force on the ground improved tactically, so did its use of airpower. Open supply lines from Turkey also had a significant effect.

US and coalition aircraft striking Kobani faced a long flight from deployed bases. They also had to fly past Syria’s air defenses. Syria’s integrated air defense system usually looked westward, toward Israel, and coalition aircraft operated in the East. Yet the threats were real.

American F-22s in-theater helped quarterback the strike packages. Aircraft such as B-1 bombers, F-15E and F-16 fighters, and others carried electronic warfare systems able to process and jam signals. The B-1s were especially good at dealing with electronic threats.

Dynamic targeting was sharpened during the siege of Kobani. Joint Tactical Air Controllers rarely deployed with the Kurds. Instead, they employed ISR to watch the fight. As targets developed, JTACS did collateral damage estimates and forwarded targeting. Sometimes cell phones were part of the process.

Lt. Gen. John W. Hesterman III, then-commander of US Air Forces Central Command, explained that the vast majority of dynamic targeting strikes were “well away from friendly troops in contact. And we use a multitude of sources to initially ID the enemy and communicate what we see. Then JTACS in operations centers do a collateral damage estimate and then we deconflict friendlies. And when that’s done, a senior officer clears the sortie.”

“You know, the average time for those strikes, by the way, is measured in minutes, not hours, or even halves of hours.”

By far the single largest amount of ordnance pounding ISIS targets in Kobani came from B-1 bombers, which dropped 1,700 precision guided weapons on Kobani during the siege.

“Bones” from the 9th Bomb Squadron at Dyess AFB, Texas, deployed to Qatar in July 2014 expecting six months of long combat overwatch flights to and from Afghanistan’s airspace. They had been used consistently since 2001 to loiter and drop bombs, provide overflights, or simply keep watch. Previously, in Afghanistan, the 9th Bomb Squadron’s B-1 crews found it could take four to five hours to develop and strike a target.

In 2013, they had dropped just 93 bombs in Afghanistan over six months.

At Kobani, the intensity of the fight ratcheted up. “It was a massive shift in rules of engagement,” said Lt. Col. Erick Lord, the 9th BS commander, to Military.com in a January 2018 interview.

In Kobani, “It was just go! Blow everything up,” Lord said.

“It was an urban environment, so there were a lot of buildings,” Maj. Charles Kilchrist told the website.

“We had jets there every single day for 24 hours a day. Along with the F-15E Strike Eagles,” he said.

An F-16 pilot described her missions over Kobani. Especially after night sorties, dawn would break over the deserted town. It looked “like a moonscape,” she said.

One ongoing concern was interference from Syria’s Air Force. This F-16 pilot appreciated how F-22s often just took care of air superiority and let the F-16s concentrate on air-to-groundwork.

Maintaining air patrols over Kobani meant six or more hours on station. Depending on what happened, fighters were often rerouted back into Iraq to refuel.

The F-15s and B-1s would tag each other, handing off targeting coordinates as they rotated in and out for the days-long watch.

“We were just bombing them back, and back, and back … to the West, and [ISIS] would try to sneak around to the South, and then we would see them, and … it was just a huge battle,” Kilchrist said.

On the ground, the arrival of Iraqi Kurd Peshmerga troops brought forces with experience in coordinating US air strikes.

“There were times we were bombing across the street, and as soon as the weapons were going off, they are charging into the rubble to take out what’s left and move forward that line of troops to the next block,” one B-1 pilot told Air Force Times. “It’s an amazing job the [Kurdish forces] did and how they are, more so than air- power, critical to victory in Kobani.”

The B-1s went Winchester—dropping their entire bomb load in one mission—a total of 31 times in the fight for Kobani. That was a credit to smooth air-ground coordination. Typically, crews would release weapons on individual targets throughout several hours.

“The more they [ISIS] try to act like an army … they just reinforce failure, and we kill them at a very great rate,” concluded Hesterman.

“They were very willing to impale themselves on that city,” one B-1 crew member told Air Force Times.

On Jan. 19, 2015, Kurdish YPG fighters stormed Mistanour Hill. Kobani was declared fully liberated about a week later.

The transcript continues:

“The “air strikes helped a lot. It helped when we had a reliable partner on the ground in there who could help us fine-tune those strikes,” Kirby told reporters at the Pentagon on Jan. 27.

Kobani was a significant defeat for ISIS. It lost personnel, territory, and its command-and-control safe haven. The ISIS plan to mass and exert military force over the city fell apart.

CNN reported ISIS fighters withdrew from Kobani because “we no longer had places to hold there,” an ISIS fighter said. “We were inside Ayn al-Arab and we occupied more than 70 percent, but the air strikes did not leave any building standing, they destroyed everything.” The targets even included motorcycles; he added.

Also in late January, Hagel announced the US would begin to train and arm Syrian opposition forces. The success of combining Kurd ground forces and coalition airpower at Kobani had proved the concept.

Then-USAF Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh acknowledged that his service flew about 60 percent of the sorties in the air war against ISIS. However, he shrugged off the credit.

“The DOD approach is not to defeat ISIS from the air. The intent is to inhibit ISIS, to attrition ISIS, to slow ISIS down, to give the ground force time to be trained because the ground force will be required,” Welsh said in a State of the Air Force press conference on Jan. 15, 2015.

Holding Kobani was not the end of the ISIS fight. It took a huge acceleration of air strikes from 2015 through 2017 to secure Iraq and bottle up the worst of ISIS. The weapons release count for Operation Inherent Resolve reached 106,808 at the end of 2017.

However, at Kobani, airpower again stepped in as the workable option in a foreign policy crisis, with lives on the line and the world watching. As with Bosnia, Kosovo, and the early days of Afghanistan, allies found their airmen provided a way to fight.

Concluded one B-1 crewman: “I look forward to telling my grandkids that I got to help these people and to defend their homes.”

“On 26 January 2015, the YPG and its allies, backed by the continued US-led airstrikes, began to retake the city, driving ISIS into a steady retreat. The city of Kobanê was fully recaptured on 27 January; however, most of the remaining villages in the Kobanî Canton remained under ISIL control.The YPG and its allies then made rapid advances in rural Kobanî, with ISILS withdrawing 25 km from the city of Kobanî by 2 February.”

“By late April 2015, ISIS had lost almost all of the villages it had captured in the Canton but maintained control of a few dozen villages it seized in the northwestern part of the Raqqa Governorate. In late June 2015, ISS launched a new offensive against the city, killing at least 233 civilians, but were quickly driven back. The battle for Kobanî was considered a turning point in the war against Islamic State and the beginning of official collaboration between the United States of America, the single largest military force on earth and the Kurdistan Workers Party, considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, American and virtually every major country in NATO.”

“This was also the beginning of the PKK-American alliance lacking any other credible ground force to take on ISIS; a leading imperialist hegemon shortly after began training and funding one of the last important leftist guerrilla groups left standing after the cold war, as long as they could work under a front; and the name of that front become the “SYRIAN DEMOCRATIC FORCES.”

By the time the SDF had successfully rebuilt most of the City by December of 2024, the Turkish army was massing for the second battle of Kobani. This time there was no American air support.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

June 19, 2025 0

MEC-A.I-S.XXV

S C E N E (XXV)

بادرو

BADERO, BEIRUT, 2023 ce

***

“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.

February 12, 2025 0

MEC-AI-SXXIV

SCENE XXIV

كيبوتس عين دور

KIBBUTZ EIN DOR, State of Israel, 2001 ce

***

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 the Islamic 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 Tagliit Birth 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.

February 12, 2025 0

MEC-AI-SXXIII

SCENE (XXIII)

الأراضي التي يسيطر عليها تنظيم الدولة الإسلامية

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 Kafirs⁵⁴ have 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.

February 12, 2025 0

MEC-A1-XXI

S C E N E (XXII)

مطار رفيق الحريري الدولي

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.

February 3, 2025 0

MEC-AI-XX

S C E N E (XX)

The Academy at Mt. Qerechow,

Rojava-Syria, 2017 ce

***

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 25^th 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.

February 3, 2025 0

MEC-A1-S-XVII

S C E N E (XVII)

קיבוץ עין דור

KIBBUTZ EIN DOR, State of Israel, 2001ce

***

The very first Kibbutzim were built out of both practicalities, and a socialistic feeling that many of the early Zionists arrived with from old Europe. It is correct to assume most of the early founders, pioneers, resetters; resettlers; were Ashkenazim from Eastern Europe; where material conditions for the Jew were far worse than Western Europe. Until the 1930’s when they would become fairly bad in both Europes. Mostly Ashkenazim, but not wholly. Certainly, one can see an overwhelming majority of white Jews in the early Zionist congress, its structures of settlement, and its proto-military formations. That is wholly because the Sephardim and Mizrahim; were without a doubt more integrated into the Muslim world. Their position was without a doubt one of being tolerated, but it was an integral toleration; written into the Quran as the word of G-d. In Europe; a series of inquisitions, blood libels, persecutions, expulsions, culminating in the Holocaust of 6-7 million. 7, as the Germans didn’t count infants and children in many of their extermination counts. Yet, today, on the Arab street, it doesn’t matter how many Hitlers forces eliminated, “it was not enough”. The kibbutz was an attempt to remake the world, in a settler Zionist leftist infused fashion. It was a project to transform the ghetto Jew of Europe, the Jew of the Pale, into the Judean of his heritage. It was practical as it was about maximizing labor, in an egalitarian fashion, it was also infused with the socialist ideas of Europe. The USSR had been born in 1917. Many of its architects were Jewish, though not all certainly. There was a feeling in the mind of the early pioneers that they were recreating a world, but most of them were not religious, so they drew intellectual and moral supports from a long-gone warrior past; Moses and the exodus, Esther and Mordecai, Hanukkah and the Hasmoneans, Bar Kokhba and the three wars with Rome, a time before the exile and wandering. Not necessarily grounded at all in the scrolls. Fused to that; the core value of Tikkun Olam; the Jewish duty to remake the world in a moral light. The left progressive manifestation of manifest destiny or being “chosen”. What that became in practice was all the early architecture; the structures of the new Jewish state that came into being in 1948. The kibbutzim, hundreds of them; were incubators of the new state. Perhaps more than half were left, and the other half were right; Moshavim; farms of tenancy in common, as opposed to collective ownership and utopian values.

Now what was in no way consistent was to what degree the early settlements incubated tolerance and acceptance of the Palestinians. The people that had been on the land for at least as long as the Judeans had been expelled from it; sometime between 66CE-136CE.

There were three very bloody wars with Rome, and then all of us who survived were marched out into protracted slavery. From 136CE until the beginning of organized Zionist re-settlement beginning in 1897, of course a lot of wholesale misery befell the Judean people. Alot of brutal violence, expulsion, discrimination, pogroms and butchery in Europe. Between 136ce and 1948 when the Jewish state was re-established, people lived in Palestine. Whether Palestine was ever a state, for it never was, does not negate the multi-generational settlement of Arabs into the land. Perhaps some were once Canaanites, or Philistines, but it hardly matters. Either under varying caliphates or Ottoman rule; the Arabs of Palestine never ceased to exist.

It is not well known amongst the modern Arab street, or anti-Zionist student protesters that Theodore Herzl, Zionist founding father and ideologue, longed to live alongside the Arab. Sought Jewish redemption as an integral part of the Middle East. It is not well known by Jews that Ben-Gurion, the labor left founding father of the third Jewish commonwealth planned and executed ethnic cleansing. While the right-wing Revisionist counterweight, whose legacy informs Netanyahu and Likud Party; sought to live alongside Palestinians in a far larger Palestine than anyone else though possible. Jews are literate and we all somewhat study history. The very nature of the Talmud is legal reasoning. That cannot be fully said for the Arab street. But it doesn’t matter anymore. The violence which began in Palestinian riots in 1916, has basically not stopped cycling to this very day. The Israelis speak of Independence War, the Suez War of 1956, the 6 Day War of 1967, the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the Lebanon wars from 1978 until 2000. The first Intifada, the second one we are in now. But it’s a non-stop vile bloody endless war. The rest of the Middle East has in the same period been at war, either with Israel, or with each other. With each death, a changing of our nature as people. Until no one can see anything besides the defensive posture of endless war. To that end Israel has acquired 200 something nuclear missiles.

“The first man you see die; it is a consciousness lowering experience. With each death you experience you become tainted, you become stranger. This is magnified 100-fold the first time you kill.”

The Kibbutz has many books in its library, and in my free time I suppose I gave myself a second glance into my people’s imagined history. Which like any history of any people is full of justification and mythology, yet with two Jews one might fight five opinions and six organizations, and argumentation with each other at length, also in one’s own head. A running self-doubt about the destiny of the so-called chosen people by G-d, also anxiety about what it took to survive for so many thousands of years. And in our scrolls, in our own books, we have built an entire paradigm about the feasts of survival, the fasts of our many massacres. The veritable film industry around the Holocaust, large Hollywood violins playing for us alone. It was never one tragedy. Never one moment of doubt. It was a vast and unusual mythology about how we survived all that, and what if anything is our duty now, to our own nation and to others.

“Death of any form, you cannot unsee it, and you cannot ever forget it. Usually, if it is someone close to you, you can also never forgive it. And thus, in this small place, no bigger than Al New Jersey, that cycle has played out since 1916 accelerating mass inter-communal violence with new intensification.”

There in explains Israel and the soul of the Jew. For when in the last 2,000 years was not the Jew being hunted, or expelled, or persecuted, or exposed to concentrations of death and dying. That is then our obsession with history, or another way to say a canon of near miraculous survival. The Jew, if anything, is literate and a literate person can read and retain history. But for nearly 2,000 years the Jewish nation was stateless, unable to practice many skills. So, the Jew became adept at working with their brain. True, but also devising a means to survive outside of, if not with the state hostile to Jewish existence. Because the Jews were also always frequently expelled by Christian powers, they evolved a wide range of portable skills and portable non-state structures.

Ironically, though the last 100 years would have one believe the Jews and Muslims are locked in eternal conflict this is wholly false. Jews were not maltreated, massacred, and genocided in Islamic lands, for the most part. It was not until the re-conquest of Palestine that animus boiled over. Yet, death and dying, now killing seems baked into the Jewish nation. The state of Israel is then a pressure cooker. For it is mostly undisputed that European gas chambers and killing fields took the lives of 6-7 million Jews. That event, that event was an instance of dramatic evolution. It cannot be said Israel was founded because of the Holocaust, or by its survivors. Nor should it be overlooked what one might have had to do to survive the holocaust.

The stories we tell our children and venerate to each other in our holidays are also about what we had to do to survive Egypt; kill their first born on Passover. Assyria; fight a brutal guerilla war on Hanukkah. The story of Purim is how we sent a beauty to bed the king and get permission to massacre tens of thousands of our Persian enemies. Lag be Omar symbolizes the tens of thousands the Romans massacred in our three wars with them. This is all crude, but it is also somewhat true. Perhaps we the Judeans are as good at killing as we are at running to not be killed. Jabotinsky famously once said that we should not hold ourselves to any higher standard than any other nation. Israelis it seems have learned that lesson well.

The aggregation of all events in the last 2,500 years was a crude mechanism converting a learned race of rabbis, high priests, and peasants, into, what we are today. What did not kill us made us very capable of survival. Some of that were prayers of the chosen, some was our zeal. Was the survival perhaps of the worst of Europe’s Jews, or Jews that so hideously misshaped in the furnace; did they still have a Jewish soul? The most Zionist and pioneering of Jews had left Europe before 1939. The millions of Jews who had lived in Muslim nations for over 2,000 years had a different type of soul too. But all ended up in the new state, or should we say, third try at a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine. Or would be just say, third try at a Jewish state.

The lived experience of historic persecution has then made us smart, innovative and perhaps also more recently capable of a great violence that was evident in our past, but dormant for nearly 1,900 years. We pride ourselves on our doctors and lawyers, our musicians, scientists, architects, politicians and bankers. But we should read in our own holidays and feasts as a remembrance of an innate zealotry. A unique and often psychotic refusal to assimilate or compromise. Such events in our history like the exodus, but then also the invasion of Cannan. The intrigues of Purim, but also the massacre of tens of thousands when sanctioned by the king who married our Esther.

I am two hours late to work back at the kibbutz on Sunday morning. You get what you pay for, as they say. I show up for my duty on Yards and Gardens hung over, un-showered, and looking a bit vacant. My supervisor Mr. Jones saw the blood on my khaki shirt and the terrible look in my eyes. He sent me to go sleep it off. He did not ask, nor did I mention. He knew or he did not. I did not say anything about the Dolphinarium to anyone.

When I eventually woke up back in Ein Dor, the Associated Press told the world. I crashed out in my cot and slept hard. Remembering my training, I began to immediately dissociate everything I had seen. Allowing the willed dreams to become the new memories.

The next day I climb Mt. Tabor after Ulpan class as the sun is setting with what seemed like the only person about my age on the kibbutz, a young Persian Jew named Hadas Naphtali from the nearby village of Ramat Ishai. She claims to be “an anarchist” and practitioner of “black voodoo magic”. We borrowed a copy of the Tenach from the kibbutz library. We say extraordinarily little as I follow her up the mountain, really a large hill. We watch darkness overtake the valley from the top of the mount. She begins to read, her nearly D’s and her tease have me fully under her spell. She is bad, as they say in Brooklyn.

It was an interesting Biblical passage she recounted describing how King Saul consulted with the wizard woman from Ein Dor before his fatal battle on the Gilboa. King Saul had persecuted spiritual people during his Kingdom, so no wonder she was afraid of the King. Although he came to the meeting disguised, the witch recognized him. Saul required her services to get a sign about the future he would face in the crucial battle the next day against the Philistines. King Saul brought back the ghost of the recently dead prophet Samuel; however, Samuel did not deliver a positive outcome of the battle. Indeed, King Saul died on the next day.

It was at Ein Dor that King Saul learned of the fate of Israel as well as his own on the next day, which he was completely powerless to stop. His own G-d was silent. In the silence he put fatal trust in the witch of Ein Dor. And now so did I.

Hadas Shimeon Naphtali, part Persian, part ravishing. She was born here. She reads my palm. The valley’s Arab villages and the electric glow of Kibbutz Ein Dor flickered in the twilight. Hadas turns over my hand examining the lines of my palm. Suddenly she bites the thick my right hand below the thumb, bites it hard. I wrenched my hand back.

“The spirits will watch over you, but maybe G-d is indifferent,’ she whispers to me, ‘Take precautions, because nothing for you is totally written by G-d. You could be undone on Tisha’bav, or one day they will you be a Messiah. The angels encircle you, but the djinn too. They will strike at you on the day you are the happiest.” Real witch talk. “You’re an epicenter of spiritual war, no one knows how it it ends,” she tells me.

My hand still smarts from where she just bit into me. Do not let a witch bite you, old Haitian Voodoo saying. Who really knows what is in their bite?

“What’s all that all supposed to mean?” I asked her.

“Nothing is written for you when G-d writes the chapters of the year for others. That you’re just foreign sexy and I like you and the sounds you make. We should get the fuck out of this country before it all blows up around us,” she tells me, “What are we doing here,” she asks me, “take me to your homeland America! To Newyorkgrad. There is nothing good for us here in the long run. Only a slow death or a fast death.”

“This is our homeland.”

“Is it? Do we have new rights the Arabs no longer have?”

“There are many other Arab nations.”

“There should be no nations! No states. It is all a trick on us,” she says.

“We have been through hell everywhere else.”

“It’s not true. Thats what they taught you in Hebrew school, but it’s not true! The Arabs and Persians never did anything to us. We had no reason to war with them for 100 years.”

“They started the war.”

“It doesn’t matter Zachariah who starts a war. States and kings start wars. Not regular people. No one asked the Palestinians to live here, they just have lived here for thousands of years. This is their land as well. They farmed it. They built homes. They lived here while we rotted in Europes ghettos. But my family comes from Persia. They never had issues with us. There are still 20,000 Iranian Jews living safely in Iran.”

“They kicked them out of everywhere else.”

“Did they? Depends on what books you read, I guess. Maybe some left on their own. Some were tricked into coming. Some got kicked out later.”

“We should have a state of our own.”

“No. All states are oppressive. All nations are built on death and lies.”

“Where did you learn all this,” I ask her.

“Books in the Kibbutz library and my parents.”

“I like it here,” I tell her.

“You haven’t seen shit.”

“Show me everything.”

“I’ll show you as much as I can.”

“It’s a very small place. I have been dreaming of being here all my life.”

“There is so much violence happening here. Behind walls, in plain sight. I was born here, so it is my home now. I am Jewish like you are Jewish, so we are home. But it all has a cost. A cost to keep our many enemies at bay. Life here is not like the kibbutz, it is hard to poor here. It’s hard in the cities. Most people are not so well off. There are many cracks you will see soon. Don’t glamorize this land, and don’t die for anyone’s state.”

She takes my hand again.

“Kiss me hard and let’s go to America, ok.”

She kisses me quite hard and says, “A war unlike any of the ones before is coming.”

***

I do not mention the bombing to either Hadas or my compatriots of the North American Social Club. But they could see I had sunken into a depression. I stopped attending Ulpan class and began to drink more heavily. Yuma began to taunt me, or at least that is how I perceived it.

Sometime in mid-June a new girl from Ramat Ishai, a small town twenty minutes to the north had moved onto the kibbutz after fighting with her mother about curfew. She hadn’t even unpacked her bags before I took her on a picnic, got drunk in the cornfields, and fucked her in the ass on the floor of her shower. She had black voodoo magic, next thing I knew we were taking nature hikes, and she was interpreting dreams. That was Hadas, punk and exotic. Not at all content with her life in “this colony”, as she called it sometimes.

Danny Callahan and I grow closer. Danny became a sort of older brother to me, following in an extensive line of slightly older men. After a while we dropped out of the North American Social Club altogether to spend time with our respectively cute native flings. After a day in the yards, we often sat on our own porch watching Debriyiah and sipping from big bottles of frosty cold Coke. I always snared a few liters whenever I ventured off the kibbutz. We’d pontificate about these wonderful desert women. He was set to marry one this time next year. Danny is teaching me to freestyle rap, to rap off the top of my head. I was always something of a makeshift romantic poet and Danny told me this would be yet another tool I might use to communicate my message. I had sense shared with him both my past and my subversive ideals. Back in LA Danny had been a regular at open mikes in various hip clubs. In America I would have laughed at this, but this was the Middle East. You clung to what you were before on some gut level. He gave me my first hip-hop CD by out outfit called LATYRX.

I will tell Danny more about my “revolutionary thinkings”. He nods approvingly at most of it and wished me luck as many slightly older men had done before him. He assures me that I’ll never be out of work here. “Something is always broken or exploding or burning down. The trouble is it’s a small place, so they can and will catch you eventually.”

We rarely talk about the Palestinians, what they want or what should be done about them. Danny tells me he thinks that they had more right to this land than he or I did. After all, they have nowhere else to go. “Their only fallback position is more death and more forced exile.”

Danny is not a Jew at all, but had claimed his grandmother was one to get an immigration VISA. He would be off to the Army in September once he completed the Ulpan program. He was 26, which put him at the age for active service. I had neither renewed my soon-to-expire tourist visa nor made any real strides toward official Alleya. Even Johnny Yuma had gotten his Todat Zhoot, which entitled him to some cash and subsidies from the government.

Danny tells me that even though I was a more bonified Jew with my candle lighting rituals and my intermittent prayers, I would be looking at three years’ service in the Defense forces. It wasn’t even theoretically legal for a 17-year-old to be bopping about Israel with no guide or family, but no one ever called me on this. My freedom of movement would be further curtailed with registration. As I’d be quickly conscripted. Mr. Jones, my South African foreman in Yards and Gardens told me to catch the next flight out of here. “Go back to America, kid. This whole place is falling apart. In the heat of violence to eventually be swallowed by the sands. There is no actual future for you here.”

I am getting a lot of advice about my future. Through it all Danny remains mostly neutral. In his cool, collected cold California old stoner way, he says that “I should take all the time I need to decide.

He urges me to: “Flee the shelter of this stupid boring insular kibbutz and see more of the real country. See what is really happening here, the good, the bad, and the real. Better now than when they stick you with a rifle to defend it. Then give your children a rifle, and their children after them.

“Alot to see in a very small place.”

It is all rather good advice. Eventually, I must take some of it.

“Did you know that in Tel Aviv you can order women from your phone like a pizza, He tells me.

December 18, 2024 0

MEC-A-I-S-XVI

S C E N E (XVI)

بيروت

BEIRUT, 1932ce

***

“Counting people is a sensitive matter in any country, often fraught with fraud, gerrymandering, as well as bold lies.” No one is interested in upsetting the balance of theft and power.

For that is when shooting and raping starts. The war. The civil war took 140,000 to 170,000 lives but no one, especially not the Maronites, want to admit that the new facts on the ground have nothing in common with the ethno-religious confessional system in place. It is typically a system that benefits the Chrisitan and the Sunni elites, at the expense of the Shi’a in general and the placation of the Druze who make up 5-10% of the population. Were one a betting man or a trained anthropologist; the Christian numbers are down from war emigration and the Shi’a numbers are way up from having large family sizes (6-9 children). There are also as many as 478,000 Sunni Palestinians absolutely no one wants to naturalize and as many as 1-2 million Syrian refugees, but only 780,000 are registered with the UN relief agencies. They Syrians have always come and gone for freely, like and awkward armed big sibling. To the South Israel has a long history of invading and occupying, and sometimes getting the President killed (Bachir Pierre Gemayel in 1982). To the Northeast Syria has a long history of invading, occupying, and sometimes killing the President (Rafic Hariri in 2005).

They say countries with no working census are the real free countries and Lebanon hasn’t had one since 1932. But what does it mean to be “free” if all other parts of life are totally insecure? What does it mean to be counted if the numbers are all lies? It’s unnatural to be counting people like chattel and it’s completely prohibited in Judaism. Surely the State of Israel obsessively counts people every single day. The trouble is, the Lebanese went and fixed these invented numbers of 1932 to their Confessional Quota system, with Maronite Christians, Sunni, Shia, and Druze all getting lion shares of the system. Based upon the old National Pact⁴⁵ and the Taif Accords which “ended the war”, although most districts are mixed; this system allows for a kind of political horse trading that makes Lebanon a very fragile country to govern.

The Quota system slots key political and bureaucratic seats to specific ethno-religious groups. Remittances and smuggling make up a large unknown portion of the GDP, could be above 40-45%. No one really knows. The Lebanese also offer boutique medical and legal services to much of the Middle East. There are 42 universities. Tourism makes up much of the rest followed by banking (which used to do better than tourism i=until the sector imploded in hyperinflation), real estate, and construction, money laundering, food processing, wine, jewelry, cement, textiles, mineral and chemical products, wood and furniture products, oil refining, and metal fabricating. You can know that as a maven trader or look it up on hte CIA Fact book, but in general all numbers are inventions here.

Now, a clever idea for your next vacation; somewhere with a real sunny beach and alot of bang for your the fucking dollar. Somewhere they do not openly hate the Americans and want to put them in bags or bags on their heads. A bad idea; various places with ethno-religious rocket exchanges going on every day. Also perhaps places that use quota systems to link ethnic group factions, of which there are 18 listed, to seats of theft and power. Also the quotas are fixed to parliamentary posts, top military commands, trade institutions, civic leagues, and as a result all Lebanese are living on a mountainous powder keg with valueless currency. The default is that there is not one Lebanon, but instead at least 5. Possibly 18. That’s Lebanon in gross geopolitical simplification in case you didn’t catch that. That’s not all of Lebanon, just a very very problematic part of the most obvious of problematic parts of it. Of course it doesn’t capture “the Lebanese Soul” which was a 5,000-10,000 year journey to materialize, at least. They don’t all hate Americans for sure of course and don’t all want to put them in bags. Putting some one ina bag is not very hospitable and they have done well to stop doing that since the 1980’s. Though many still do. In the 1970s and 1980s kidnapping was a major industry of grievance where at one point 147 American and European hostages were hidden all over Beirut. Perhaps kidnapping people is an advanced form of hospitality, and it was all dictated by Iran, who knows.

Since the very minute, the Jew purchased his plane tickets it was like a secret to be kept. You see, there are things you tell your friends, and then there are things you hold inside because if you tell your friends they will think you are crazy and try to stop you from doing anything important or interesting in life. So, Sebastian, later known as the “Jew of Beirut”, didn’t tell that many people about his plans to go to Lebanon. Also, those he told, he made it out like some kind of well deserved “reckless adventurism” to the wild Middle East. Not like there was a whole fully baked reimagined plan, the kind of plan the Jew knew best.

“You see that was something well know about their people; the ability to hold multitudes of contradictory information in the head; believe all of it to have truth; and formulate plans from the data flowing through.” Of course, all smart people can do this, not unique to Jews.

You see, the Jew of Beirut rarely acts without acting in concert, which is to say, he manifests a specific line of conspiracy wherever he goes. A fusion of human rights populism, Middle Eastern particularism; and pontification on the love of free life! He has detractors but mostly curious if not enthusiastic supporters. After some time living and working in New York Grad he had ingratiated himself to many people. He’d become a well known person in certain circles. He was like a Mayor of his work force. A person with some connections and agency beyond himself. Even if always filled with self doubt. He had some things to build on therefore some things to barter or totally lose. Or perhaps he was only really important to one person only, his secretary Karessa Abe, arguably the only person that ever really loved him. And he squandered it all the time by never really being a suitable partner to her. Never cheating, but never being available enough. She is more than a decade younger than him and they ain’t in the old country anymore.

He is President of a Harikaat, a movement of ambulance workers seeking much better conditions. It was somewhere between a charity, a lobby, a union, and Hezbollah without God. He was also a law student. He has thoroughly studied the Zionist idea and found to be, through a Kurdish lens; a universal idea about how rights are won and secured.

So, being a President of a quasi-underground, reasonably militant labor association devoted to the well being of EMS workers, he figured for the right price some of them could be lured to Lebanon to carry out some basic training. But this was a background thought. The kind of training everyone needs; EMT training; when can’t the world benefit from having a few more EMTs around? Spoken like or thought about like the thinking of a career EMT? Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps. The plans of a Jew lawyer paramedic. It’s hard to make small talk when your mind is wide enough to see much of the world moving at the same time. But, the world cries out for help, so sending more Paramedics is only part logical. At least not really something many can oppose if they can figure out how to pay for it. So the Jew of Beirut took off for more than adventure, for less than just a type of altruistic business deal. He wanted to find a way to cross over and remain there. He hadn’t totally considered how much that might hurt or offend other people; it was just a desperate act.

Now desperate acts usually don’t have high degrees of planning, and although the Jews are known to be quite master planners, sometimes the best plans go very South. Once in 1975 the Israeli Military and some of the Lebanese Maronite Christians had a plot to reconfigure Lebanon⁴⁶. It went really fucking south. The Israelis occupied a strip of southern Lebanon called the Security Zone for 22 years. In 2000 they unilaterally evacuated, and Hezbollah fully took over there, south Beirut, and the Bekaa Valley. The plan to restore Christian hegemony and unite Lebanon and Israel in an alliance, while driving out the PLO, well all that failed.

***

“The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Lebanese people is a blend of both indigenous Phoenician elements and the waves of foreign cultures that have come to rule the land and its people over the course of thousands of years.”

In a 2013 interview, Pierre Zalloua, a Lebanese biologist pointed out that genetic variation preceded religious variation and divisions: “Lebanon already had well-differentiated communities with their own genetic peculiarities, but not significant differences, and religions came as layers of paint on top. There is no distinct pattern that shows that one community carries significantly more Phoenician than another.”

“I’m going to give you a lot of great information; but I want you to focus in on just four primary factions; the Sunni; the Shi’a; the Maronites; and the Druze.”

Please see the Appendix: In Lebanon there are 18 officially recognized ethno-religious confessions which contribute to the rich diversity of the nation, and these include:

Alawites, a branch off the Shi’a who ritually drink wine and believe in reincarnation. Via the French and the Ba’ath Party this secretive ethnic minority came to control all of Syria; except for now in the years after the Isis War. Today, the Northeast of the country, north of the Euphrates River, is controlled by the Kurds, in an autonomous social experiment called Rojava.

Armenian Catholics: Ethnic Armenian Christians who accept the rule from Rome. They are very business oriented, but not natural Phoenician style global traders and they aggregate in Bourj Hammoud District of East Beirut.

Armenian Orthodox: Ethnic Armenian Christians following the Apostolic Church based in Vagharshapat, Armenia; one of the oldest branches of Oriental Orthodox Christianity. Culturally, culinarily, and aesthetically not much different than Armenian Catholics.

Assyrian Church of the East are following the Eastern Branch of Syriac Christianity not in communion with Oriental Orthodox Churches or Eastern Orthodox Church, nor Rome. Most of its practitioners are ethnic Assyrians, and its base is in Ankawa, Iraq a suburb of Erbil in the Kurdish controlled zone of the KRG; the quasi autonomous Northern third of Iraq.

Chaldean Catholics: are Assyrians who came into communion with Rome arising from a schism with the Church of the East. But they are not that much different than the Assyrians of Ankawa that did not bend to Rome. They are mainly descended from Iraqi Assyrians.

Coptic Orthodox are an Oriental Orthodox church based in Alexandria, Egypt who follow the Pope of Alexandria. Established by Mark the Apostle in the 1st century; also, an Eastern Oriental Church. Most of the Copts are descended from Egyptians.

* * Druze * *; An Abrahamic, monotheistic, syncretic, and ethnic religion whose main tenets are the unity of God and the belief in reincarnation and the eternity of the soul. Most Druze religious practices are kept highly secret. The Druze do not permit outsiders to convert to their religion. Marriage outside the Druze faith is rare and strongly discouraged. Concentrated in the Chouf mountains they have long been viewed as a king maker minority group, perhaps fourth largest on its own accord. There is a larger Druze population living in Syria and a smaller one than the Lebanese clans living in Northern Israel.

Greek Catholics: ethnic Greeks in communion with Rome. There were several failed attempts to repair the East-West Schism between Greek and Latin Christians: The Council of Bari in 1098, the Council of Lyon in 1274, and the Council of Florence in 1439. Subsequently, many individual Greeks, then under Ottoman rule, embraced communion with the Catholic Church. They typically followed the Roman Rite of the Latin Church, maintaining their parishes through contact and support mostly from the Venetians.

Greek Orthodox: are the second largest world Christian denomination using Greek in liturgical settings. Ethnically Greek.

Islma’ilis: Sometimes called “Sevener Shi’a Islam”. The Isma’ili and the Shi’a Twelvers (the dominant Shi’a sect) both accept the same six initial Imams; the Isma’ili accept Isma’il ibn Jafar as the seventh Imam and none further. At one point the largest branch of Shi’a Islam it concentrates on a deeper more esoteric version of the religion.

Jews: an Abrahamic, monotheistic precursor to both Christianity and Islam; also called Hebrews, Judeans, or Israelites. The Israelites emerged from within the Canaanite population to establish the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah.Judaism emerged from Yahwism, the religion of the Israelites. By the late 6th century BCE they had developed a theology considered by religious Jews to be the expression of a covenant with God established with the Israelites, their ancestors. The Babylonian captivity of Judahites following their kingdom’s destruction, the movement of Jewish groups around the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period, and subsequent periods of conflict and violent dispersion, such as the Jewish–Roman wars, gave rise to the Jewish diaspora. The Jewish diaspora is a wide dispersion of Jewish communities across the world that have maintained their sense of Jewish history, identity and culture. There are thought to be under 10 Jews in all of Lebanon. To many that is too many.

Roman Catholics: Arab followers of the Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.4 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2024. It is among the world’s oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization. The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission,that its bishops are the successors of Christ’s apostles, and that the pope is the successor to Saint Peter, upon whom primacy was conferred by Jesus Christ.It maintains that it practices the original Christian faith taught by the apostles, preserving the faith infallibly through scripture and sacred tradition as authentically interpreted through the magisterium of the church.The Roman Rite and others of the Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic liturgies, and institutes such as mendicant orders, enclosed monastic orders and third orders reflect a variety of theological and spiritual emphases in the church.

* * Maronites * *: third largest ethnic group in Lebanon; The Maronites derive their name from Saint Maron, a Syriac Christian whose followers migrated to the area of Mount Lebanon from their previous place of residence around the area of Antioch and established the nucleus of the Antiochene Syriac Maronite Church. The early Maronites were Hellenized Semites, natives of Byzantine Syria who spoke Greek and Syriac, yet identified with the Greek-speaking populace of Constantinople and Antioch. They were able to maintain an independent status in Mount Lebanon and its coastline after the Muslim conquest of the Levant, keeping their Christian religion, and even their distinct Lebanese Aramaic language. The Maronites are in full communion with Rome. Via the French they came to dominate the political and economic life of the colony; along with Sunni, Shi’a, and Druze still play the leading positions in modern Lebanon, although they have lost their plural majority to the Shiites.

Protestants: largely Arab but also some in other confessions; protestants follow the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began in the 16th century with the goal of reforming the Catholic Church from perceived errors, abuses, and discrepancies. The Reformation began in the Holy Roman Empire in 1517, when Martin Luther published his Ninety-five Theses as a reaction against abuses in the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church, which purported to offer the remission of the temporal punishment of sins to their purchasers. The term, however, derives from the letter of protestation from German Lutheran princes in 1529 against an edict of the Diet of Speyer condemning the teachings of Martin Luther as heretical. In the 16th century, Lutheranism spread from Germany into Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and Iceland. Calvinist churches spread in Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland and France by Protestant Reformers such as John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli and John Knox. The political separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church under King Henry VIII began Anglicanism, bringing England and Wales into this broad Reformation movement, under the leadership of reformer Thomas Cranmer, whose work forged Anglican doctrine and identity.

* * Sunni * *: Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world’s Muslims, and simultaneously the largest religious denomination in the world. Its name comes from the word Sunnah, referring to the tradition of Muhammad.The differences between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims arose from a disagreement over the succession to Muhammad and subsequently acquired broader political significance, as well as theological and juridical dimensions. According to Sunni traditions, Muhammad left no successor and the participants of the Saqifah event appointed Abu Bakr as the next-in-line (the first caliph). This contrasts with the Shi’a view, which holds that Muhammad appointed his son-in-law and cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib as his successor. A large number of Lebanese Sunnis are war refugees from Palestine and Syria with strict controls on their work and movement. It is believed that there are 200,000 to 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon; and perhaps as many as 2 million Syrian refugees. There are also Kurdish Sunni and Lebanese Arab Sunni. Taken as a whole the Sunni would likely be the second largest ethnic confessions after the Shi’a, largest with naturalization of the refugees.

* * Shi’a * *: are the second-largest branch of Islam; 5%-10% of all Muslims. They believe that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (khalīfa) and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most notably at the event of Ghadir Khumm, but was prevented from succeeding Muhammad as the leader of the Muslims as a result of the choice made by some of Muhammad’s other companions (ṣaḥāba) at Saqifah. This view primarily contrasts with that of Sunnī Islam, whose adherents believe that Muhammad did not appoint a successor before his death and consider Abū Bakr, who was appointed caliph by a group of senior Muslims at Saqifah, to be the first rightful (rāshidūn) caliph after Muhammad. Adherents of Shi’a Islam are called Shi’a Muslims or Shiites. The Shi’a are believed to make up a true plural majority of the population in Lebanon. Their largest representatives are Hezbollah, the Party of God, and Amal, a more secular expression. The Shi’a are heavily dominant in southern Beirut, the Bekaa Valley; and Southern Lebanon.

Syriac Catholic: The Syriac Catholic Church traces its history and traditions to the early centuries of Christianity. Following the Chalcedonian Schism, the Church of Antioch became part of Oriental Orthodoxy and was known as the Syriac Orthodox Church, while a new Antiochian patriarchate was established to fill its place by those churches that accepted the Council of Chalcedon. The Syriac Catholic Church came into full communion with the Holy See and the modern Syriac Orthodox Church is the result of those that did not want to join the Catholic Church. Therefore, the Syriac Catholic Church is considered to be a continuation of the original Church of Antioch; though today are headquartered in Beirut.

Syriac Orthodox: also known as West Syriac Church or West Syrian Church, officially known as the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, and informally as “the Jacobite Church”, is an Oriental Orthodox church that branched from the Church of Antioch. The bishop of Antioch, known as the patriarch, heads the church and possesses apostolic succession through Saint Peter, according to sacred tradition. The church upholds Miaphysite doctrine in Christology, and employs the Liturgy of Saint James, associated with James the Just (also called James the Less and James, son of Alphaeus).Classical Syriac is the official and liturgical language of the church. The See of the church is in Damascus.

These 18 confessions have lived on or near Mt. Lebanon maintained a diversity that topographically, defensively was lost in the lower levant by waves of invasion from every direction. “That is to say Lebanon is very defensible, and Israel-Palestine is not.”

These 18 groups are reflective of most surrounding Middle Eastern states; Israel being the only one with a Jewish Oligarchy and Iran being the only one with a Shi’a Oligarchy. Syria and Iraq, after the wars have been partitioned into Kurdish, Shi’a, and Sunni zones. There are of course hundreds if not thousands of break off, off shoot, or otherwise derivative sects of these 18; such as the universalist Baha’i, or the pre-Abrahamic Zoroastrianism. There are unique but derived sub sects like Samaritans or Yazidis.

One explanation of the Lebanese diversity is that mountains are highly defensible, communities can historically retreat and hold ground; another is that “the Lebanese are actually more gracious than they war like. Even during the civil war, or the current border war; not a very large percentage of the population was under arms.”

Many would like to shed the Confessional system and see it as a colonial anachronism (as well as how Syria dominates Lebanese affairs). The ruling elites of Lebanon prefer the status quo. As all ruling elites tend to do. 25 long years of civil war altered demographics but not the dominance of the four largest confessions. Maronites, Sunni, Shi’a and Druze each run de facto cantons, but no group is able or willing to fully impose itself on the other. A wise Shi’a leader Al-Sayyid Musa al-Sadr once observed Lebanon’s best protection was its “indigestibility”. “That is a quality that eventually obliges ambitious groups and governments to confront Lebanon as it is, and to accept that definitive solutions are far less likely than persistent contradictions. The Syrians certainly think so. And the Israelis would come to agree.

December 6, 2024 0

MEC-A1-S14

S C E N E (XIV)

ديار بكر

Diyarbakir, Türkiye (Ahmed, Kurdistan), 2012ce

***

Recounts Heval Oldivan Amraz, also known in some certain circles as “Comrade Moving Target.”

HEVAL OLDIVAN AMRAZ

“I found myself as a young man in Diyarbakir City, the place we long call ‘Ahmed’, the future capital of all Kurdistan.” The black walled citadel of Bakur. The proud capital city of a nation that doesn’t exist, yet.” And the wicked Turkish boots do grind the necks and general spirit of the people all around us.

“A poetic if not fully epic place!” An ancient citadel of giant black stone walls and total martial law. A town of prisons, stories, heroes and valiance in the epoch of the Kurdish people. Little wine bars, a thriving literary scene. It cannot decide whether to be eastern or western, Turkish or Kurdish. The epicenter of a great revolt, or the dystopian mockery of the full-blown repression of a colonizing power forcing a boot heel on our neck. As Kurdistan is a powerful and long repressed enduring idea, that idea is becoming a reality on the barricades here and in a long running fight in the mountains. An imagined community of over forty million souls who are wrongfully, shamefully divided between the imposed nation states of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran all things have two names, all things are both real and imposed upon us. As if to be a Kurd requires an act of insanity, and an act of double thinking. A persistent zealous fight to make the world acknowledge our rights and identity. To admit we have a right to survive as a nation beset with enemies on all sides.

AMRAZ

“Following the Turkish military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was prohibited in public and private life. The prison of Diyarbakir filled up and the endless wails of rape and torture propelled the movement to full mobilization and to take up arms again.

Diyarbakir, which in my people’s tradition is also called “Ahmed”, has now swollen to nearly 4 million people since the eradication and ethnic cleansing of over 5,000 Kurdish villages in the great ranges of mountains to the east. The primary battlegrounds between the Party and the Turkish State. Growing up there, there was of course no Kurdish allowed in school, no Kurdish books or music except deep underground. Were it within the Turkish State’s power, we would not even have Kurdish names! We would admit to being backwards people of “Mountain Turks”. I was born in the year of the largest, latest and greatest uprising. And although since the days of the Medes there have been “one thousand sighs and one thousand failed revolts” ‘, this uprising was to be completely different.

In 1984 Abdullah Ocalan and the Kurdistan Workers Party simultaneously attacked three Turkish army posts and police stations in Bakur and announced the beginning of the revolution. For the next thirty years, almost without pause the P.K.K. and its armed guerrillas would battle the Turkish military across Bakur, the name we call the Turkish occupied zone of Kurdistan which means “the North”. Over 50,000 would die, mostly Kurds actually. The Turks would engage in vast acts of scorched earth barbarism and we in the Party would eventually turn to outright terror. In the end, most of the deaths were Kurdish civilians. In the end the only liberated ground was a handful of villages deep in the mountains of North Iraq, the Qandil.

Now, ‘Heval Amraz’ is of course not my original name. It is the name given to me by the guerrillas of the P.K.K. when I joined the Party. By that time, we were fully surrounded in Qandil being attacked on all sides and death seemed certain. Total defeat as well. Our great leader had been kidnapped in Kenya. Major leaders of the movement including the brother of Abdullah Ocalan, Osman, had completely betrayed us. Our own Iraqi Kurdish brothers in the K.D.P. and P.U.K.-Peshmerga were collaborating with Turkey and America to annihilate us.

“How do I tell you, my story? What does it really matter? How does this even begin or end for an outsider? For people who do not even know where Kurdistan begins or ends, or even care.” As Türkiye is a N.A.T.O.⁴³ ally, and no matter what it says or does will remain a beneficiary of great power largesse.

AMRAZ

“I cannot tell you my real name of course. I cannot speak for the Party, nor can I fully disclose the depth of my hope and my hate to a stranger. I can only speak to a feeling shared on differing levels by thirty to forty million Kurds.”

I will try to say something for the benefit of doubt, that non-Kurds could care about us so much that they would come to our land by the hundreds. To fight and die alongside us not simply fighting in resistance to Islamic radicalism, genocide and repression, but also because they grasp the larger idea. The total and utter radicalism and implications of Abdullah Ocalan’s vision. The survival of the revolution rests not in securing a Kurdish State, but instead in exporting these ideas abroad. To make the blood of the martyrs raise the flood waters of all mankind and provide a blueprint for liberation.

Of course, we began as communists, we began admiring the Cubans and it was the Russians and Palestinians that first trained armed resistance in the early days in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. But we are not Communists or Nationalists anymore. Our thinking on the subject of liberation has evolved. The Cuban connection and the Palestinians connection are very real and enduring parts of the story.

But, when we all almost died on the mountain top, surrounded and out gunned in 2000 there were no Cubans, or Russians or Palestinians to help us as they were all defeated or fully besieged. By some miracle, or just by sheer will the Party survived. And the 1989 defeat of Communism internationally required us to climb higher, dig deeper to criticize and self-criticize. To adopt an evolution in our thinking. With our ranks decimated, the armed struggle in a complete stalemate, declared a terrorist organization by almost every European country; we evolved. The revolution could not ever be won with arms and ideology alone. Nor could we secure Kurdistan while every other nation on earth embraced “Capitalist Modernity”. To secure our victory and survival as a people in Bakur, Bashur, Rojhelat and Rojava we would embrace the ideas of a Jewish anarchist from Vermont, as re-interpreted in prison by Ocalan and implemented by the new largely female leadership of the Party. This methodology called “Democratic Confederalism”, adopted by the Party in 2004 would soon find actual expression in Rojava. The Wild West of Kurdistan, the North most area of Syria. In 2014 when the Civil War broke out the Party and its allied militias seized control of major towns and cities across Syria abandoned by the Assad regime.

AMRAZ

“Thus, we came down from the mountains, out of the underground and prepared to make a stand in Rojava where the radicals of the Islamic State were terrorizing our people and butchering everyone in their path.”

“If we go back to the mountains, it will signal only our isolation and defeat.” If we hold these cities, if we showcase that we are fighting to defend not just for Kurds but for Arabs, Assyrians, Yazidis, Circassians, Chechens and the Turkmen too; if we show that Democratic Confederalism is the solution, the way ahead for all oppressed peoples; then others will join us. And like the Nowruz⁴⁴ mountain fires this uprising will eventually spread everywhere! There is a historic destiny to our revolution. To be victorious where all others failed!

A most dramatic pause.

Out of habit, Comrade Moving Target lights a cigarette and pours himself a cup of black tea. On the walls of the small office set up at the training base, which is also his room, Comrade Amraz looks the dead in the eyes. Or death in the eyes? Or both. As the posters of the martyrs plaster all the walls and the war expands everywhere around us.

____________

December 4, 2024 0

MEC-AI-S13

S C E N E (XIII)

نيو جيرسي

Al New Jersey, U.S.A., 2023ce

***

Every time we survived a fire fight in Rojava, usually a few of the internationals were out of sorts. They had just killed someone, maybe for the first time. Or seen someone die. Maybe they had shot someone that wasn’t necessarily a combatant per se in the heat of the battle. Or had just been awake for too many days at a time. For a time from of the international fighters, particularly those in their first trial by fire fight, would seem a phantom in the days after the battle. Maybe they would say nothing at all for a time, or maybe they would say something totally off base.

Heval Erdal, a British comrade liked to say:

“I think he lost the plot point.”

Years later, after some of them made it out of Rojava alive, statistically 1 in 10 international volunteers died in the war, and 4 of 10 died from either suicide or by Russian rockets in Ukraine; some years past the pitched battles to defend Rojava, the Jew of Beirut was in Al New Jersey, a state to the West of Al New York. He was meeting with Souheil Tajer, a Lebanese businessman. Telling a short story about his time in Syria. Trying to make it make sense.

“We have to circle back to when things still made three dimensions of sense,” Souheil says to the Jew.

“Circle what?”

“Circle back as to not lose the trail to the plot points.”

“What does that mean?”

“It must make sense to regular people! Stop dancing around in a dabke circle. Stop beating around the bush.”

“What is it you’re planning to do in my country?”

Before the Jew of Beirut, who was only really one half-Jew, (he was technically, allegedly Chechen by his father and Cuban Sephardic by his mother), before he flew into Beirut for allegedly the very first time, days before the Great War began. He went first to a place called the coast of Al New Jersey, a neighboring state to New York, across a River. To West New York. Before he departed with an ill established, albeit ambitious plan he met with an elder statesman of Lebanon, a man named Souheil Tajer who presided with his nine brothers over an import-export firm for high end foods. They speak at length about the unbelievably bad timing, the bevy of possible new experiences, “unique experiences” that Lebanon is known for. The culinary extravaganza is obvious to all, but the people and their resilience in a flailing economy at the edge of a war zone are the most profound. A place where pure strangers are easy friends all the time. A people descended from epic trader sailors; the Phoenicians.”

“The Golden Age of Beirut ended in the Civil War of 1975.”

From 1975 to 1991 the Palestinian militant groups, the right-wing Christians, left wing Druze, Sunni, and the Shiites set off on a very bloody civil conflict. Not everyone participated but everyone was soon shooting and kidnapping in various power constellations. It eventually involved the Maronite⁴¹ right called the “Lebanese Forces” or “Phalange”; the Armenians stayed mostly out; the Christian Orthodox liberals; the Sunni Nasserist Pan Arabists; the Shia Left called “Amal”, the Shia revivalist ethno-nationalist right called “Hezbollah”; the Druze left in the “Progressive Socialist Party”, the Israelis, and the Syrians, the French, and the Americans and about 140,000 to 170,000 people lost their lives. When it ended nothing was ever really resolved. So, in a sense, it was always just a matter of time before something like that could happen in Syria or happen again in Lebanon. None of the demographic problems were ever addressed. But while the iron heel of the Assad regime held Syria together, until 2014, in Lebanon it was a though there are defacto ethnic cantons, states inside the illusion of a state.

The country once called the “Paris of the East”, was reduced to an exceedingly long slaughter. No one was left in the absolute majority. Except probably the Shia. No census has been taken since 1932, as has been noted. The President was to be a Sunni, the Prime Minister a Christian, and the Speaker of the Parliament a Shi’a. 18 ethno-religious groups (including Jews) were allotted proportions of important posts. Ways to steal really, and every faction got a port to smuggle from. Everyone buried their guns, except for Hezbollah, “the Party of God” representing the Shi’as (believed to be the true plural majority); and then the Syrians killed the President. The Druze stayed up in the Chouf. A mountainous region to the east of Beirut. Each faction controls a port city except the Druze, everyone is smuggling something.

There was a fast economic upturn from 2008 to 2011, but now the money, the Lira, is valueless and no one can get it out of the bank. Skyscrapers stand empty, the Israelis and Hezbollah exchange daily rocket fire, and life of course somehow goes on. People show up to jobs that don’t really pay and pretend to work. What is the old Russian saying, “we pretend to pay you, and you pretend to work.” Tourism has totally collapsed. But Winter is not tourist season anyway. Only the national carrier Middle Eastern Airways is flying in now.

ADONAEV

My understanding is that a “Green line” runs south from Martyr Square, and it divides a mostly Sunni West “Ras” Beirut from a Chrisitan zone in the east. There are 3 major Palestinian camps in the Southwest and Shi’a in the south and Southwest in zones run by Hezbollah. The airport is squarely in the Hezbollah control zone, or at least everything around it is. They didn’t have a map, but a map of varying lines exists in both their heads. Albeit with Mr. Souheil Tajer has the far more intricate and detailed map.

SOUHEIL TAJER

It is good you are familiar with the “Green Line”, but there are other lines not to cross. “In good times, you would be testing them, them the Lebanese, but under the current situation, everyone will be tested by you. Testing you, wanting to know why you are there, now. What is your motivation?” Everyone will be very, terribly angry about the Palestinian situation. How could they not be? 20,000 is a lot of dead Muslims. Alot of dead people. And it will go higher. It will go to 40,000 by the dead of winter. And then higher still. So many dead people, dead Muslims, everyone will ask where you stand on that. No matter what their confessional feelings. You really must stay inside the Christian and Druze lines on the map. Beirut East, the coastal cities until Batroun, the Chouf, and the Matn. Everything else is an abduction possibility.

You should study that map in real life and your head and use your common sense! Don’t exceed your limits.

ADONAEV

I’m there for 25 days. I’m going to rent a little studio in Achrafieh. I’m working on a book.

SOUHEIL

Achrafieh is safe. You must not stay in the Muslim area after dark and don’t stay in their hotels. No one can guarantee your security. In East Beirut you have many friends. The weather will be bad. It may rain every single day I’m afraid.

ADONAEV

I plan to do some writing in the Chouf, at your friend’s place in Berkazy. I am gonna stay in the city, be wary of my encounters, and stay in the right kinds of places.

SOUHEIL

Achrafieh is safe, but you must, must, must find a good driver. It’s essential to your safety. I wish I could go with you and make some better introductions! Now repeat what I have told you please.

ADONAEV

The green line is the line of demarcation, staying in Muslim areas is not advised in the current situation. Be careful who I get to know because everyone is very curious and will be more curious because of the timing. No ultras, no interviewing extremists, no gangster-type venues. No adventures with fast and easy women of the night. Not an adventure, I won’t wander too much in the night If at all outside the Chrisitan zones. I’m gonna stay to my limits. I’ll get a good driver.

SOUHEIL

“How do you know your limits, or any limits in a place you’ve never been?”

ADONAEV

I know what kinds of risks I’m taking implicitly. But it’s important to me to know your people in their hard times and then later in the good times. I wish to know the Lebanese.

Souheil ponders that, but only for a micro minute, he carries on a conversation with ease and expertise.

SOUHEIL

You’ll need a driver, a driver you trust. And stay in touch with me every day, I’m here for all your questions. I would love to go with you, I will go with you next time. You must be very conscious of your surroundings. Please do not befriend the wrong people and end up in a trap.

ADONAEV

“I’ll get a good driver.”

SOUHEIL

Preferably a Christian driver. I know how that comes across to you, but you do not understand how it is yet. You need a driver you trust. Who is very responsive to your logistical needs. And will not make up new hyperinflation prices. Pay for everything in dollars if you can they will charge your credit cards Lira rates that will be preposterous.

Now listen closely. If Hezbollah and Israel end up in a major escalation you will need to get out quickly and the airport will not be the best way out. If things go very badly internationally, you must get to the Port and find a ship to Cyprus. The Israelis will certainly bomb the airport into the ground, they always seem to do that. You can also go wait it out in the Chouf, I’ll give you some phone numbers. But ideally, you get out by ship if the war spreads. Which it really might.

“This is not the best time to go, I really encourage you to reconsider.”

ADONAEV

My flights from Paris have already all been canceled due to the security deterioration. I will have to reconsider my options. There are only inbound flights on Middle East Airways.

SOUHEIL

One thing you must do is visit the Shrine of Saint Mar Charbel⁴². He did something like 26,000 plus miracles. A very holy man. If your itinerary allows this, you must go and get some holy water, or oil and walk in the footsteps of this highly righteous man. It will change your whole life! I promise you that.

ADONAEV

I love me some miracles! But I never rely on them at all, just my raw wits. Thank you for talking this out with me. It all seems more possible than before.

SOUHEIL

Follow your heart but know your limits!

***

In the bustling streets of Beirut, where the scent of spices mingled with the sound of honking cars, a plan was set in motion. A group of seasoned professionals gather in a dimly lit room, their faces obscured by shadows. Among them was Kaveh Atatable Ashuri, a notorious mastermind known for his audacious heists. “We need something big,” Kaveh declares, his voice low but commanding. “Something that will shake the city to its core.” “Make the fat cats afraid.”

After hours of deliberation, they settled on their target: Banque du Liban et D’Outre Mer, BLOM Bank; the largest bank in Beirut, renowned for its impenetrable security. With meticulous planning and precision, they devised a plan to infiltrate the bank, bypassing every obstacle in their way.

On the fateful day, chaos erupted in the heart of Beirut as the sound of gunfire echoed through the streets. Masked figures storm the bank, their movements swift and calculated. With a combination of brute force and technological prowess, they breached the vault and laid their hands on the coveted treasure: stacks of cash, worth millions in theory.

As alarms blared and security forces scrambled to respond, the robbers made their escape, disappearing into the labyrinthine alleys of the city. But their journey was far from over. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of the audacious heist remained elusive, their identities shrouded in mystery. With the authorities hot on their trail, they vanished into the shadows, leaving behind a trail of confusion and intrigue.

In the dead of night, the stolen fortune found its way to a different kind of terrain: the cramped alleys of a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut. Here, amidst poverty and despair, the money was dumped unceremoniously, like crumbs scattered to the wind.

Word spread like wildfire, and soon, the camp was teeming with people, their eyes wide with disbelief as they beheld the unimaginable wealth before them. For a fleeting moment, hope flickered in their hearts, a glimmer of possibility amidst the harsh realities of their existence. In the heart of Ras Beirut, chaos erupted as the deafening sound of gunfire shattered the tranquility of the bustling city streets. It is a scene straight out of a strange foreign dream or an American action movie, but this was all too real. The robbers had struck the biggest bank in the city, leaving behind a trail of destruction and terror!

As the dust settled, the robbers emerged from the bank, their faces concealed behind masks, their weapons glinting in the sunlight. They moved with military precision, their every step calculated and deliberate. But they were not alone. The police were already converging on the scene, their sirens wailing in the distance. With adrenaline coursing through their veins, the robbers made a run for it, their bags of stolen cash clutched tightly in their hands. They jumped into their getaway vehicles, tires screeching as they sped off into the crowded streets of Beirut. The chase was on! RATAATATATATTATATATTATATATATTATTATA!

The streets turned into a battleground as the robbers and the police engaged in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Bullets flew, shattering windows and sending bystanders diving for cover. It was a scene of utter chaos and carnage, with no end in sight. But the robbers were not about to go down without a fight. They fought tooth and nail to evade capture, weaving in and out of traffic, narrowly avoiding collisions with oncoming vehicles. Their driving skills were nothing short of extraordinary, but the police were hot on their heels, determined to bring them to justice. As the chase raged on, the robbers made a daring move, veering off the main road and into the narrow alleyways of Beirut’s labyrinthine streets. It was a risky maneuver, but it paid off. The police were momentarily thrown off their trail, giving the robbers a much-needed advantage.

But their respite was short-lived. The police soon caught up with them, their sirens blaring as they closed in on their prey. With nowhere left to run, the robbers made a split-second decision to turn off the main road and into the sprawling Palestinian refugee camp of Mar Elias. The camp was a maze of narrow streets and crumbling buildings, a haven for those fleeing persecution and violence. It was the perfect place to lose the police, but it was also fraught with danger at every turn. As the robbers raced through the camp, they were met with fierce resistance from the inhabitants, who had no love for outsiders, bringing violence to their doorstep. Shots rang out from every direction, echoing off the walls of the cramped alleyways. But the robbers pressed on, their determination unwavering. They knew they had to keep moving if they were to have any hope of escaping the law’s short arm. And so, they pushed forward, their hearts pounding in their chests, their breath coming in ragged gasps.

And then, just when it seemed like all hope was lost, they saw it: a narrow alleyway leading out of the camp and into the relative safety of the surrounding city side. Without hesitation, they gunned their engines and raced towards freedom, leaving behind a trail of chaos and destruction in their wake.

As they emerged from the camp, they were relieved, knowing they had narrowly escaped capture again. But they also knew that this was far from over. The police would not rest until they had brought them to justice, and the robbers would have to stay one step ahead if they were to survive another day in the unforgiving streets of Beirut.

December 2, 2024 0

MEC-A1-s12

S C E N E (XII)

سوريا

THE TURKISH ARMY IS COMING!

Green Village Outpost, Syria, 2017ce

Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria

***

At the Green Village Outpost contact line our tabor is told to dig in. So, for a few days we helped sandbag and fortify what appears like the accommodations of long fled oil workers. Something green and modern looking in the bleak oil lands of Der Ez Zor province. Oasis in the Wastelands north of the Euphrates. The Turkish Army is coming.

SEBASTIAN ADONAEV

“Sometimes I close my eyes and remember your lips.” Late into the long trips home. I have no home; it was your home only. Only my ugly little flats around the Brooklyn Soviet. Rented in desperation, vulnerability, an admission of poverty. And I will never go back to that humiliating life. I will never see you again, or see Russia, or Cuba, or Mehanata or any other type of slavery life. Your lips and whispers are still lingering Goldy. It forever remains.

Now deployed about ten days ago to the Southern front near Omar Fields. Daesh is nearly finished they say. Assigned first to Tabor Shihad Lawrence, five quickly died by snipers and mines in the first night of the operation.

The twenty international volunteers are all drifting in different directions. They prefer we not all die at the same time. There are supposedly around 500 international fighters in Rojava, mostly from the U.S. and Europe, also Türkiye. But numbers and time to the Kurds mean absolutely nothing. So maybe there are 500, or maybe just 50. Who knows Heval, who knows!

“Daesh is nearly defeated.” The Islamic State once size of Great Britain at its maximal, poised to take Baghdad and Damascus is reduced to the wastelands of the deep desert and a strong of indefensible towns along the Euphrates River southeast. From the North the Syrian Democratic Forces supported by the Western Coalition advance. We are part of that force. On the other side of the Euphrates the Russian Army, Lebanese Hezbollah, and the Syrian Army advance. We all try and not shoot at each other, at least until ISIS is finished. Over the border in Iraq ISIS has been largely crushed; the Shi’a Popular Mobilization Forces, the Iraqi Army, the Iranian Pasdaran, and Western advisors and Special forces have all but driven ISIS from Iraq to the Syrian border.

The name I have been given is Heval Kawa Zivistan which means “Comrade Black Smith Winter.” I am a Paramedic in civilian life and therefore one of the highest medically trained foreigners in the brigade. Heval Shoresh from Brooklyn, I have known him since childhood. He has a child back in America. And I judge him for being here were it my right to judge. But this palace and this revolution is irresistible to us both. He is a gardener back home. Here he carries a heavy-duty long-range, high-power rifle called a Dastun which is about twice his size. Hard to aim.

There is Heval Sasson from Austria. He was an EMT who once travelled with his girlfriend all over Africa on a motorcycle. He is quiet, ideological, principled and socialist in disposition. With also is Scottish Heval Ciya a former British solider. Also, the mad man possible career criminal kicked out of the French foreign Legion called Heval Sivan, who although he claims he was also a British solider can’t hit a target with an AK to save his reputation. He hasn’t let up for many days talking about the Order of the Knights Templar, talking about the Knights of Malta; actually, engaged in an unending pressure of speech manic diatribe about the new crusades, that we are allegedly in. There’s also Heval Azad from Albania, something of a gypsy, a bespeckeld intellectual; an anarchist of course.

There is also a French Legionnaire of enormous size, almost a giant. He is called Heval Gabar and speaks only of the Legion, reveals nothing of his life. He isn’t very well liked by the other internationals. There is also a young kid who looks not more than 16 but is allegedly 18 his name is Max. One of the few held back in the Academy because of minor injury. He is dubbed “Heval Maslum”, but everyone just calls him Max. And that is how he introduces himself. He’s allegedly from Salem, Oregon. No matter what sems to happen he just repeats, “I don’t care.”

After the 5 Arab conscripts were blown apart the first night, they broke the internationals nto smaller groupings. Ciya and Sivan were sent to a YPG Cadro Tabor based on being British military they were sent to the front. Soresh, Maslum, Gabar were merged into an Arab unit and sent to the front. Sasson and I were attached to Kurdish Red Crescent outpost in the Naqta in Omar Fields. Gabar and Maslum dubbed “pizkereks” or problem makers were sent to guard a fox hole on the edge of some useless “liberated village”. No one knew where Heval Azad was sent, but Albanians are very tough crafty bunker people.

“He will turn up and be just fine!” Heval Sasson says, ever an Austrian optimist. “But he just as easily could have stepped on a mine and blown off a leg or been hit by sniper bullet.

***

Then night came and Sasson and I were quartered in a farmhouse. The commander invited us over to the field command for tea. The mood was the war with Daesh was almost over and very soon we would all be fighting Turkey in the north and or Assads forces right over the river.

The Commander is named Heval Azadi. They basically cycle out the same 50 Kurdish code names for everyone seems like. The commander in very broken English invites us for black Tea in one of the many pillow rooms they like to build.

“Trump say, no more guns for YPG,” he tells us the SDF is the brand the YPG uses to appear more inclusive, a little less Apoist, a little more not the PKK, but the commanders almost always say YPG or PKK, there’s a lot of little acronyms for small armies out here. The YPG, or the People’s Defense Forces make up 80% of the SDF; the Syrian Democratic Forces. All the best commanders are Turkish Kurd PKK trained.

“Daesh done in Iraq. Two towns left,” Azadi tells us.

“24 little Gundes to take along the river,” he says. A Gunde is a village.

“In Moscow, the PKK make a deal with regime,” he says, regime meaning Assad and Syrian Army, “Iran, regime, Russian make deal on autonomy and oil rights.”

We are engaged in an operation to seize Syria’s oil fields, Sasson had explained. There were not many ISIS fighters left after Mosul and Raqqah fell. This is all now about who can take as many oil fields as possible to negotiate the final settlements. This seems to discourage Heval Sasson.

“Really all that is left now, “says Commander, “NUSRA Front and HDS in Idlib.”

“Al Qaeda’s Syrian brand,” Sasson tells me.

“The PKK make a deal in Moscow; we will end making terms with Assad. The HDS, the Nusra, the Deash all the Islamist proxies in Idlib, Bab and Jarabulus City they must be eliminated to close the gap.”

“Closing-the-Gap” we learned in the Academy was about pushing through the Islamists into Turkish Hatay Province to gain sea access for Rojava. The Gap also being closing the lines between Afrin and Kobane. Afrin Canton is hard to resupply and will be the first thing the Turks attack.

“As soon as Deash war is over Turkey will attack, you will fight with Turkey?” They all wanted to know that. Would we all stay and fight the second biggest army in Nato.

“Of course we will,” Kawa claims, but Sasson knows suicide is also problematic when they return to their homelands. In fact, it is well known that many of the prior volunteers, of which there were only maybe two thousand over the past ten years; they didn’t adjust well here or there. But this was an antidote. Some did multiple tours, others died in other foreign lands for lesser causes.

“When Daesh is done there will be no ceasefire. Turkey will attack immediately. 45% of call Syria now in Rojava. In SDF hands. Turkey will waste no time,” says Heval Baran from Germany. Baran had set out to join the PKK, but after 6 months on the mountain they sent him to the YPG. The Germans apparently are the best suited of the internationals to adjust to Kadro life, but Baran said simply; “I don;t really want to give up women.” The life of a Kadro is one without any material things, no attachments, not sex no marriage. Life of total dedication to the struggle.

We all speculated about “Fighting the Turks near Afrin” while in the Academy. It will be slaughtered. A cadro boasts that “We have peace deals with USA and with Russia maybe also China!” But the dependency on the U.S. airpower is real.

“The Regime will not ever accept Rojava in any form, it is just too weak to defeat it right now.”

“Russia will never abandon the regime,” someone says in Kurdish.

“It is like America and Israel; you have Syria and Russia. The Regime gives Russian Mediterranean Seaport access, the Regime is only alive because of Russia and Iran.”

“There are many factors. Russian is loyal, America is not. When Daesh is over there will be no more guns, no more air support.”

“How many Western volunteers do you think are still in Rojava,” Sasson asks the commander.

“40, maybe even much less,” the Commander says. “50,000 came to fight for Daesh, maybe over time 2,000 came to help the SDF. 1,500 leftists from Turkey and 500 from the West. Now, in country still, 50 maybe.” “The airports in Erbil and Slemani are still shut down because of the independence referendum. For now, you are here to stay. Who knows what will happen. PJAK is now fighting in Iran again. Maybe soon more fighting between Iraqi Army and Pesh Merga. And Turkey! They are coming trust me heval.”

Goldy wrote that she might have to marry her rich ugly patron. Polina wrote she is leaving me since I am “on the other side of the planet now” Chanie is “back with Charlie”, so probably I will never hear from her again. Anya Noori, my attaché, sent me some news from Baghdad. “They are arresting Western volunteers without good paperwork coming back from Rojava. Slemani and Erbil airports are down everyone must go out from Baghdad.” But I have good paperwork. I called my parents the other day. An Arab had sold me a Syrian SIM card. They seem proud that I am there. I hope I can hold it together and reach ‘the mountaintop.’ There, if I am open-minded, I will finally understand the truth; into its innermost parts.

Like in my dreams, the EMT Program of Kurdistan is just a means to an end. And after thought, the G.C.C. is barely useful or functional any more out here. My so-called partners Andrew, Forti, Jessica, Matthew Smith, Ovid all have defected and left me out here with no help. Can I count on David Smith, Kaveh, Jonah, or Dr. Wagner, probably not or only for a little.

Everything here is an assault on my senses! Daily, I must learn ideology, discipline, war, Arabic, Kurmanji, keep Sasson and I from stepping on mines, dying in airstrikes, getting enough water. Sasson has said he is willing to help me run the EMT program if only we can get authorization to do so. The Kurds do not believe in time, they do not believe in space, and they do not believe in relying on foreigners. They do seem to believe concurrently in American led coalition airpower.

The others we trained with, the twenty, are all dispersed to different positions. Ten to Afrin and ten to Der Ez Zore. They must choose their own adventures in Rojava. I do hope that Soresh stays alive for the sake of his 6-year-old child and young wife. Ciya and Sasson signed the G.C.C. paperwork, the cover contracts that they will claim later to the government of Austria and Scottland that when they did out here was purely medical. But it’s not so much will they stay 6 months to train in an EMT program it’s more will the war ever actually end to allow the time and space to justify one.

It’s impossible to know how far up the mountain any of us will really ever go. Heval Barron was there almost a year. The German heval said little good or bad about it, he barely said much.

So many ways to die out here. We or most of the 2,000, or 500, or 50 shared a noble goal. Defeat Daesh, defend the Revolution in Rojava. In the meantime, Sasson and I have been training Arab fighters in life saving skills. We try and stay sane. I am sure I will have to use this AK-47 before this is all over. The thought does not bother me, but I do not delight in the thought of any killing.

Today, a villager “gundi” handed me their sick infant and I listened to its lungs and heart, and helped prepare some Pedialyte mix. The child was sick but dehydrated and stable, the Arab comrades keep telling people an American doctor is in the camp. But even in Syria I am still just a a paramedic not a doctor at all.

So much responsibility is on my shoulders. They all have varying medical issues. Infected toes, rotting death, abdominal pains. I do what I can. The Party purchased me a huge rolling duffle bag of medications and medical supplies. So, we stay as busy as we can.

I daydream, and hope Goldy thinks about me more than sometimes, but probably only Chanie does when she is allowed to. Goldy sometimes WhatsApp’s me cute photos and sometimes Anya, the attaché flirts from Baghdad. I have been sending Chanie letters via the U.S. Special Forces were run into coming through the camps.

I realize that G-d or no G-d, Abdullah Ocalan is writing about a universal truth. This is the last stand. The last chance we will ever have or get again.

“Deash is all wiped out,” the Commander repeats, “BUT THE TURKISH ARMY IS COMING FOR SURE. To burn all we have built to the ground,” he sighs, “Serkaften, we will fight them too!”

We all probably have a lot more bleeding left to do no matter what happens.

November 27, 2024 0

MEC-A1-SX

S C E N E (X)

Россияروسيا

Nizhny Novograd, Russian Federation, 2016ce

***

“It’s not always cold in Russia,” explains Polina Mazaeva, a Russian Chuvasan³⁹ sympathizer and mother of a seven old named Yazan. Yazan was born to a Syrian Druze father who is not with them anymore. It is complicated, yet not that complicated in every society.

POLINA IVANOVA MAZAEVA

“Men abandoning women with their child is a very old story actually in all cultures.”

A pause.

“It’s just that we have had to exhibit a certain moralistic coldness.” A certainly ethical chill? This was the experience of growing up in the ruins of the Soviet Union. But we are not without beliefs. We are not without our sympathies. You just must be careful how you talk about them. Things need to be rational; they need to be sentimental but only if sentimentality is kept in letters or behind closed doors.

Outside Moscow and St. Pete’s life is often lived quite poorly. Nationalism was at an all-time high. When many have an internal critique about our leaders, or the price of buses. Or the treatment of homosexuals or Chechens, perhaps we keep it out of our heads. Because the United Russia Party has made many advances to restore us to national dignity. Curb the oligarchy to some degree and reign in the gangster-ism of the 1990’s. The infrastructure of the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, outside the downtown area remains largely as it was in the late 1950’s. Optimistically better than what Stalin provided, but still brutalist, soul sucking Soviet crumble. Certainly, the upcoming bus boycott will test the limits of ‘free speech’. There are piles of dirty snow all around the fourth largest city in the Federation. The very tall statue of Lenin still stands near the Hotel Marins Park. He’s still the default father of the nation. Only the ultra-wealthy have any admiration for the Czars, except for of course Peter the Great who stands tall over Moscow.”

Russia is a multiethnic, mostly single party oligarchic federation of some 158 nationalities, immediately east four hours from Moscow is the Chuvash Republic. The semi-central Asian Chuvash people are vaguely European and vaguely Asian; almost all are orthodox Christian and have never in remembered Russian history run afoul of the central authority. Never got themselves butchered or deported enmasse to Siberia. No, no, the Chuvash play well with others. The Chuvashan capital is Cheboksary on the Volga, but many can be found in Nizhny Novgorod, the Russian Detroit, once a closed and secret city called Gorky.

Who is Polina Mazaeva? A coy Russian Agit-prop? No, No, she actually has fallen in love with this tragic radical, Sebastian Adon. And they are preparing to meet, but have composed several Russian American, or Americano Soviet love songs and scribbles.

Why and when Sebastian and Polina began to write to each other is of no great mystery, both were in pure existential crisis. They wrote often and eloquently in the year leading up to his deployment in Kurdistan Syria and Iraq. These letters and poems all sounded similar, but not the same to previous love affairs during the Cold War, but they reinforced each other’s motivation.

“This is not a ballad for two people who move on!” But fundamentally the reality of their underlying narrative was that one-day Sebastian, who had more agency via his U.S. passport would fly to her and give her a new life. A more tragic but realistic understanding of the correspondence was that before he was going to do the hard part; give her and her son a new life; he would go to Syria, where obviously he could die.

She mentioned the contradiction only seldom. Their worst fights were Polina’s frequent accusations of Sebastian’s habitual womanizing. Which was real, but not as magnified as she made. He was not sleeping with every single woman friend he appeared in a Facebook photo with. But he had lovers she did not see. He assumed she did too, but she did not. She loved the idea of him but never expected him to ask for some mega long distance monogamous relationship. It was strange. But she had a son and little Yazan kept her more faithful. Sebastian in the meantime took under half a dozen women to bed, the idea of Polina was sentimental to him, but also not exactly real. Periodically she would flip out over a woman he appeared with on social media. But it would fade. Several times he threatened to cancel the Russian leg of the trip, but he did not want to. Russia was something he needed to see before he died. He probably will die out there like the 600,000 plus others who had perished in the war so far. Maybe in an airstrike, but from a mine. ISIS had allegedly booby trapped every room of every house of every village, town and city they had occupied.

The correspondence was real. They uniquely relied on each other to float. The underlying assumption that their struggle was real, that Sebastian would die on some barricade rather than raise a family and that Yazan had frozen her life into place. Sebastian had clearly acquired a revolutionary delusion of grandeur and was now enslaved to his own expectations of heroism. Polina had fallen hard for her baby’s father and been rejected and abandoned. The Russian state and her parents shouldered some of the costs of raising a seven-year-old, but her life was a dull repetition and a soft cage.

Yes, the struggle is quite real! Sebastian had several times averted ongoing suicidal ideations through her soft tone and patient words. Polina had taken on new online classes and high expectations of what was possible. While the flirtation with self-harm was mitigated by the responsibility of motherhood, she had dark times. They needed each other after a point. They waited happily for the next response which honestly flowed all day every day since he was an ambulance man, and she was very per diem self-employed with information technology type assignments in graphic design. They wrote and wrote and wrote. Sometimes poems, songs or sketches. Sometimes he would tell her how hard he planned to fuck her, or she would write out something that seemed hard enough to be a rape scene. They both were getting what they needed out of it. A friend in the dark. Two friends in long distance post-Soviet love. Two dreamers who live in utter and total nightmares. It gave them something to believe in.

Polina Ivanova Mazaeva throws back her crimson dyed hair and makes a pouty Chuvashan face for a selfie. I love only three men! I love my son the very most, he is the future. He is happy and free and built from diverse parts. Yazan is his name, and he is seven. Like any mother I have to love my son very first, even before myself! I am sometimes a dramatic and hysterical person, but this is who I am. Also, a jealous wife.

“My mother is of unknown ethnicity, unknown as her mother was adopted as an orphan during the Great Patriotic War against Germany. In appearance she is convincingly Slavic. Her father is a happy smiling Chuvash⁴⁰.”

I love second, my forbidden, partially forgotten Syrian Druze ex-husband, Damien. He is in Dubai now, we tried hard to make this work, but he is Druze, and I am Chuvasan, and never the two can be together. We tried. But it was too complicated. I love him still, I fantasize about him returning for me and carrying me off to the high-tech parts of the Middle East, but he is gone.

Only the face of my son reminds me of him a little. They make fun of him in school and call him Arab, but this is not Arab. He is Chuvash, and Druze. Holy, actually, a reincarnated Druze inside him will speak in parables sometimes.

“My third love, and final for now is Mr. Comrade Sebastian Adonaev. An American. A New York revolutionary, a medical worker on ambulances and a very gifted artist. Perhaps better understood an upper middle-class malcontent. Aspiring revolutionary? I hope he will not die in Syria, but statistically, it is probable. He has my heart in some strange way. Only with his spirited words.”

Sebastian makes a lot of written reports, partly because he’s a writer and partly because his team is spread widely over four countries. He writes me love letters and also forwards technical reports. They are highly boring but cast some insight into his Middle Eastern movements and affairs. I am not really invested in his brigade of foreign fighters bound for Syria, of course, but I admire them all for their relative bravery. Rather, it would be better if he just stayed in Russia with me when he arrives, which will apparently be on May Day 2017.

Sebastian writes to Polina Mazaeva frequently, as though the spirit of the 18th century could still be alive within the tools and technology of Century 21:

Dear Pauline,

There are eight people in or supporting the growing expeditionary party into Rojava. Some are working on the field ground and some from the safety of the U.S.A. Demhat al-Jabari, a Kurdish patriot I met in university, is negotiating with me in Kurdistan. He will likely go to Rojava but return for school in the fall. Shoresh is an actual anarchist, he doesn’t really have a role as much as he showed up to fight in the Y.P.G. and perhaps do some gardening. The constant gardener doesn’t care about any bigger picture or whether Rojava will rise or fall, he will come for six months and depart. He has a wife and young baby, so it’s better, I guess. Alacan al-Biban Rasool is a Kurdish fixer boss. He’s a local to Erbil. He does Fixing, without ever taking money. Yelizaveta Kotlyarova is a Russian doctor, just a podiatrist, and Dr. Jordan Wagner is an ER doctor, and they will do medical control from the stateside. Pete Saint Reed is a marine leading a little medical detachment inside Mosul. Justine Grace Schwab is working with Alacan al-Biban, also with Pete, and maybe could be our 8^th; but she is savvy and magic and cunning but doesn’t play on a team well.

Our overall contribution to the humanitarian side of the war in the end was under forty women and men deployed in Iraq under the auspices of Pete Reed’s N.G.O. Global Response Management, and mere four volunteers from abroad, a gardener and I named Spike going up in the mountains, and over the river and into the Y.P.G. A Peruvian nurse named Francisco who worked briefly with Pete in the battle of Hawija, and a Kurdish American negotiator named Demhat al-Jabari. So Pete Saint Reed was a better commander and focused wholly on the work in Iraq.

“There are a lot of complications,” he claimed. One may have been the lack of a reliable hotel bar in Rojava.

My unit of four, really three in the end was actually all we could manage to get over there and into Syria. Several dropped out, unexpectedly? Not expediently expected. The American activist drama queen, “VIP leftist” Cecily Macmillan. A medical assistant in training named Joshua Hunter and a Ukrainian EMT named Philip. Syria is not actually an easy place to sell volunteerism in America.

Few of these volunteers in the end proved dependable, but who could really blame them in the face of the Syrian Civil War bloodbath. Only the Kurds Alacan al-Biban and Roj did any leg work, out of patriotism. Oh yes, Spike did his seven months but certainly none of that was dedicated to the medical mission. He deployed to shoot.

Really Pete Reed’s success, if you can deem it any success what he accomplished, in Iraq was about managing to access the W.H.O. money. His military veteran can do bravery and being embedded with the Iraqi Special Operations Forces helped a lot. The potential disaster of our Syria mission had most to do with the near total inability to reinforce or evacuate our team once inside Syria, being therefore wholly dependent on the whims of the YPG. Which again, stands for People’s Protection Units, the P.K.K. mostly Kurdish militia fighting ISIS as the primary Coalition-led proxy. Who allegedly and have a deep “martyr culture” and a sort of contempt for Western medical workers.

Sebastian’s reports, like his mind, dig deep then ramble out into incomplete destinations. Actually almost no one read them besides Demhat, Alacan al-Biban and Polina; sometimes Mr. David Smith, or anonymous forces based in Arlington. Regarding Polina and Sebastian;

“We are both writers and both artists, she took only a slight interest in my Middle Eastern Affairs.” So, Sebastian thought, but that was not true she followed Russia in Syria closely. The Russian media anyway called it World War three. Polina authored many email letters and some he printed out and carried with him in a leather binder.

Sebastian carries her letters about to reinforce in himself courage when the weather is too hot, which it always is, and death is inevitably getting too near, which it sometimes does. Such was one;

My Dear Comrade Sebastian,

Privet!

Maybe because many of all in my life you don’t know. You are important to me, that’s why I am winding all, afraid to lose you. I don’t want to be selfish; it just happens. And I really didn’t want any relationship before I knew you better, because I needed to take a break after the last relationship and do something with my psyche and my life. 

Why do I claim any love for you? When you wrote to me in October, I just couldn’t understand why you sent me such long letters. Especially because most of them were difficult for me to read. I just wanted to be polite and answer when I could. But then I saw that you feel bad, very bad. And I have a rule – if I have failed so far in my plans, I need to support those who don’t see for themselves how much they can do. You can do all you wish. You can gather people and organize them for common activities. For a good deal.  You are a wonderful person. You supported me later. And I began to be inspired by you. I learned how you feel, how you sympathize with other people, what your heart is. You have a beautiful smile and so much fire. Simply, we are all people, and we all have weaknesses that we have to contend with. And you too, and me.

Now you inspire me more and more, and I like your ideas, because I begin to understand them (it was difficult before because of the language barrier), and of course this feeling – I hate it, but I miss you constantly and I would not want to share you with anyone. I’m unstable for the last three years, there were so many reasons, that’s why I did not want to get attached to anyone – it would create problems for everyone.

But you’re great, just know this. I love your strange smile. Your cunning brown eyes. Even when they are tired after a hard day. I love your voice, and I love your face. I love your body (so far imagined in the pictures), I love your thoughts and that thing which guides you, the reasons why you are and what you do. You are a very kind person, so you suffered a lot. And you are wonderful, in any case, even when your strength is running out. I just love you because you exist. I would follow you everywhere and support you in any crazy thing, and I would share with you my most beautiful night dreams. And if you were nearby, I couldn’t let you leave a bed, I would give you all of me. Simply, you are very important and forgive me, if somewhere my old complexes I project on you. I’m not perfect at this. Sorry. It happens in only one timeline, then leaves. Wait a little, please, you’ll see a lot of good from me. And I hope you feel a little better today or soon. If you need to speak about any of your problems I am always here.

Your comrade & your future lover,

Polina Ivanova Mazaeva

P.S.

“Do not have affairs with other lesser women or get yourself killed in that war. There are many people besides me who care about you!”

November 27, 2024 0