Local News
Journalists in Beirut sign of trouble ahead
By By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times
Mar 26, 2008 - 5:54:41 AM

While others flee, Lebanon edges to 'tipping point'

BEIRUT - Wissam Sharaf is not the kind of guy you would welcome to your neighborhood, or to your city or country, for that matter.

World-weary at 34, the television journalist is a veteran of conflicts and strife in Pakistan, Liberia, and the Darfur region of Sudan. This year, he's moving from France to his native Lebanon, and not because he wants to get closer to his family roots.

"Now I want to come to Beirut," Sharaf said, "because I think it's going to move."

Dark clouds loom on Lebanon's horizon. On the streets, young men gather weapons. Off the Mediterranean Sea shore, US warships have approached for the first time since the 1980s. The Shi'ite militia Hezbollah boasts that it has rearmed itself in preparation for the next conflict with Israel. Throw in a series of bombings and assassinations and a paralyzed government, and the words "tipping point" come to mind.

Like a generation before, many young and talented Lebanese here are leaving for Europe, the Americas, the Persian Gulf.

But not the journalists. When journalists appear here, everyone stiffens, as if the Grim Reaper has walked into the room. Since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, more than a half-dozen US news organizations have positioned reporters in the country.

"We like it when the journalists come, but not for a war or when something bad happens," said Jad Mansour, 28, a receptionist at Le Meridien Commodore hotel which hosted journalists during the 1975-90 civil war. "Journalists only come for the bad things."

Other than journalists and relief workers, foreigners also seem to be fleeing Lebanon. The Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti governments recently urged their nationals to get out of town. The State Department "urges US citizens to defer travel to Lebanon."

Some Lebanese are optimistic, convinced that Lebanon will pull out of its current conflicts and the country's US-backed faction and its Iranian and Syrian-backed group will agree on a new president and a new government.

Lebanon has been without a president since late in 2007, creating a perilous power vacuum. A few hope that a solution will emerge from the Arab League summit scheduled this week in Damascus.

But the country's track record on getting out of trouble has not been so great. In fact, conflicts tend to spiral out of control.

In the early 1970s, political tensions between Christians and Muslims mushroomed into 15-year civil war. An Israeli invasion in 1982 devolved into an 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon. A 2006 Hezbollah operation to grab Israeli hostages to trade for prisoners turned into a month long war and an international crisis that drew in the United States, France, the United Nations, and the Arab League.

"In general it's not positive to see a lot of journalists," said Michel Attar, who runs an antiques shop in the Hamra district. "They're not tourists. They're not here to buy. It's not a good sign that they're here."

Recently, Lebanese-Canadian filmmaker Katia Jarjoura got an unexpected phone call from a French freelance war photographer. "He wanted to know if I could host him if he came to Lebanon, because he senses it's going to explode."

War is bad for business, but journalism spawns its own side industries.

"For me, it's a business," said Saad Amer, a shop owner who shows off a picture of himself wearing a BBC T-shirt in 1982.

Older, heavier, and with a lot more to lose this time, Amer has taken up safer ways to profit from any mayhem to come. During the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, he sold T-shirts of his own making to visiting journalists.

"Sorry!" reads one shirt. "The press is back."