Two and six weeks ago in Beirut...

Today the current issue of Germany's Rock Hard Megazine has reached the subscribers and will be on sale by tomorrow. Some weeks ago the magazine's editor Holger Stratmann has accompanied Finnish metal-classic innovators Apocalyptica to Beirut/Lebanon. Four weeks later I was about to follow their steps with a band of ours, but unfortunately the festival got cancelled.

I should be glad it got cancelled some ppl told me. But of course I am not! I feel like I've had the chance to visit Beirut right before the missiles destroyed what's left over from and renewed after the war. I feel compassion for all the people who would have come to the concert and wish that all of them will be able to come to the concert unhurt next year (that's where it was postponed to in the first place).

I was already making detailed plans for going out in Ashrafiya and sightseeing in Hamra. Perdu!

The Rock Hard report is ending with the words of the local scout for Apocalytica: "...provided that the peace will last. The seed for the civil war is already sown... A TV station aired some jokes about the Hezbollah and only the next days some cars burned, arsoned by young men, heated by their leaders."

In this more than fragile situation Israel seeks the solution in bombing the different fractions of the Lebanese society together. Together in one boat with Hezbollah, solidarity is a strange power and you can calculate it almost as precise as mathematics. No, I don't really agree with the German minister with the tongue-breaking name Wieczorek-Zeul, who is quoted "Israel's actions are beyond the pale according to international law". Don't get me wrong, my thoughts are with every Israelian citizen who has to hide in bunker not to get his head off by a Hezbollah grenade, and I'm pretty sure that the Hezbollah is the organization who forced this outbreak of war in the first place and which has to be cut off it's supporters and to be run dry. But I'm also afraid that the current action taken is moving the situation in the opposite direction.

The Lebanon & Israel in the news:
Six Days Of War: 200 Killed, 715 Wounded... | The Huffington Post